Elian Gonzalez Quotes

I lived in Cuba - I was there for one year in the 1950s. We built the famous nightclub, which is still there, Tropicana, and a restaurant, Montecatini, that I opened is still there. I was there when the U.S. ambassador said everyone must leave because Castro was arriving the next morning.

The first thing out of Fidel Castro's mouth to me, he looked me right in the eye and said, 'You're a man of great courage.'

I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that fucker is still here.

I realized that I had traveled to Havana during what now seems like the childhood of the Cuban Revolution, if you think that Fidel has now been in power for 44 extremely long years. I started looking at the revolution as history, and not as part of the daily news.

That first play I did in New York, Rogelio Martinez's 'When It's Cocktail Time in Cuba,' I played a young Fidel Castro.

Fidel is really a special case. He's a personality of history.

He [Castro] is a genius. We spoke about everything.

We should look to (Castro) as one of the Earth's wisest people, one of the people we should consult.

Che came in 1963, shortly after I had come to power.

I'm a staunch anti-Castro individual.

Thorough consideration should be given to the elimination of Fidel Castro

[Fidel] Castro was gifted leader who engineered social improvements that benefitted most Cubans, a statesman who placed Cuba at the center of world politics, and a masterful tactician who outlasted ten hostile U. S. Presidents…

Exploring Castro's pawns in Cuba and exposing anything negative also makes you a pawn to all his enemies 90 miles away. Both sides don't have much of a track record for nuance of opinion.

I'm not Cuban and therefore don't have any family members who were oppressed by Castro's regime. But I do have a number of friends whose families were.

While Fidel Castro used to deliver his marathon seven-hour speeches in Havana, Cubans used to joke that if Spanish lacked a future tense, their leader would be speechless. He was only fluent in broken promises, they lamented.

Of course Castro was Cuba's longest serving president. After all, he was a dictator.

Meeting Fidel Castro was really cool. It's cool because it's Fidel, and it's a world leader, and there's so much history behind the man and who he is in this hemisphere. And then at the end of the day, he's, I think, just like a big mayor. There's only, like, 11 million people in Cuba. He's a big mayor.

Comandante Fidel Castro is the greatest revolutionary of the 20th Century, bar none.

I like Fidel Castro and his beard.

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 went to Cuba maybe eight or nine times.

In Cuba, I didn't even have a bicycle.

I am Fidel Castro and we have come to liberate Cuba.

Few living figures could contribute as much as Castro to our understanding of the second half of the 20th century.

I spent a great deal of time with Che Guevara while I was in Havana. I believe he was far less a mercenary than he was a freedom fighter.