Most old people ... are disheartened to be living in the ailing house of their bodies, to be limited physically and economically, to feel an encumbrance to others - guests who didn't have the good manners to leave when the party was over.

If it's a woman, it's caustic; if it's a man, it's authoritative.

For Castro, freedom starts with education. And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth.

The feeling is that Fidel Castro's much bigger than he actually is.

It would be nice to feel that we are a better world, a world of more compassion and a world of more humanity, and to believe in the basic goodness of man.

Large cocktail parties are an infamous technique for ridding yourself of social obligations to people you usually don't know well or like much, which is such an unpromising beginning that I've rarely known one that recovered and turned into a great party.

The word 'charismatic' was made for Fidel Castro. You would have liked him, I would have liked him. Then you had to stop and say, 'Just a minute. This is a man who does not believe in freedom of the press...does not believe in democracy as we know democracy, had political prisoners.'