I am still simple, just as if I were beginning.

Cubans are frantic when it comes to appreciating music.

The music that I play and that I like is traditional music, maybe it's because of my age.

I don't sit in the corner waiting for death: death has to pursue me. I'm going strong. I hope to reach 100 and ask for an extension, just like my grandmother did.

When it comes to musicians, I'm like the daddy of musicians here in Cuba.

Every time I talk about this, I say: when the singer is singing, he must be respected, you must be able to hear what he's saying. You can't put a trombone and a drum up there, and a microphone on the drum, microphones on everybody. You can't hear what he's saying.

Towns are suffering from all these things, we should unite until we are all satisfied, man cannot be killing each other as if we were animals, as if we had no culture; that is a lack of culture.