Fidel Castro Quotes

Unless we make revolutionary reforms, some day — in some unknown serra — some unknown Fidel Castro will rise up in Brazil.

A political event was that I met Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary. He is a young, intelligent guy, very sure of himself and extraordinarily audacious; I think we hit it off well.

Che Guevara was a racist.

History will absolve me.

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.

I've been to Cuba many times.

When Castro was put on trial in 1953 by Batista's government and asked who was intellectually responsible for his first attempt at insurrection, he dropped the name of the poet Jose Marti.

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

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

The greatest promotion I ever had on a newspaper was when 'The Washington Post' suddenly promoted me from city-side general assignment reporter to Latin American correspondent and sent me off to Cuba. Fidel Castro had just come to power. It was a very exciting assignment, but also very serious.

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

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.

The Cuban economy is a disaster. No, I do not praise Fidel Castro.

Ten Presidents have tried to do something about Cuba and the statis is quo.

Well, you know, I left Cuba as a kid when I was 6 years old back in 1971.

Fidel Castro represents the dignity of the South American continent against empires. He's a living legend: an icon of independence and freedom across the continent.

[Fidel Castro] has a very good [human rights] record.

I was not chosen to be president to restore capitalism to Cuba. I was elected to defend, maintain and continue to perfect socialism, not destroy it.

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.

Communism wasn't a word that I thought of when I went to Cuba. The original Fidelistas were not Communists. They were graduate students at the university and law students. After the Fidelistas took over, they went to Washington and tried to get support from the U.S. government, which turned them down. They were in a desperate political and economic situation, so they took the offer from the Soviet Union. Communism was a matter of necessity.

Experience acquired in the heroic battle against Batista's tyranny showed that the enemy, no matter what his strength, could not defeat the Cuban people.

Since he took power over half a century ago, Fidel Castro proved to be a brutal dictator who must always be remembered by his gross abuses of human rights, systemic exploitation of Cubans, unrelenting repression, and stifling censorship upon his own people.

I played for Almendares in Cuba. Guess who was trying out for the team? Castro. Fidel Castro, as a pitcher. He could throw pretty hard, but he was wild. He didn't have any control.

Havana.- If 1959 was the Year of Liberation, 1960 was the Year of the Agrarian Reform. The nation lived days of intense transformations, not only political but, also, in every aspect of social and individual activity of its citizens.

I once dealt with a prima donna on a movie set. I won't say who, but his first name is a country. A communist country. Run by Fidel Castro.