I have always said to workers that they have to work hard, to produce more and better. In Chile, we need to achieve an average annual income of US$2,000, and to do that we need to increase production.

It's much harder to bring about socialism through legal means, because there are so many possibilities for opposition.

I believe that every president wants to give everyone work but they can't; they want everyone to eat but they can't make it happen. The same happens with education. So we have to ask ourselves, "Why can't we do anything?"

I have been to Cuba many times. I have spoken many times with Fidel Castro and got to know Commander Ernesto Guevara well enough. I know Cuba's leaders and their struggle. It has been difficult to overcome the blockade. But the reality in Cuba is very different from that in Chile. Cuba came from a dictatorship, and I arrived at the presidency after being senator for 25 years.

If the U.S. is going to defend itself, why shouldn't we do the same? We only want to be treated equally, nothing more.

I still believe in what I believed in for 20 years as a Socialist in Parliament, and being a Socialist is not the same as being a utopian.

I have experience and I am employing it in the service of a Chilean road for Chile's problems. We always take advantage of experience wherever it comes from, but adapting it to our reality. I am putting it to use in a Chilean way, for the problems of Chile. We are not anyone's mental colonists.