I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live. My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history. There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress.

I was no assassin. I got out during the amnesty because I had not committed any violent crimes.

We applied a very simple principle: Recognize the facts. Abortion is old as the world. Gay marriage, please - it's older than the world. We had Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, please. To say it's modern, come on, it's older than we are. It's an objective reality that it exists. For us, not legalizing it would be to torture people needlessly.

If I asked people to live as I live, they would kill me.

As soon as politicians start climbing up the ladder, they suddenly become kings. I don't know how it works, but what I do know is that republics came to the world to make sure that no one is more than anyone else. The pomp of office is like something left over from a feudal past: "You need a palace, red carpet, a lot of people behind you saying, 'Yes, sir.' I think all of that is awful."

Uruguay is a country which has grown from immigration, people from all over. That is our origin.

We have sacrificed the old immaterial gods, and now we are occupying the temple of the Market-God. He organizes our economy, our politics, our habits, our lives, and even provides us with rates and credit cards and gives us the appearance of happiness.