My parents were founders of the Cuban Communist Party, and I grew up extremely poor.

I wrote for a weekly magazine and then edited a literary magazine, but I did not really feel comfortable with the profession of journalism itself

I don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me

I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.

I do not consider myself a Hispanic writer.

My mother had been educated at a convent, and she had been converted to communism by my father during Stalin's most rampant period, at the beginning of the 1930s. So she had two gods, God in heaven and god on earth.

A good smoker, like a good lover, always takes his time with a cigar.