Quotes & Sayings About Castro

President Obama and his family are spending the holidays in Hawaii, and while they're gone, they got a fence jumper to house sit. Tomorrow, he will be in Hawaii playing golf with Raul Castro and the Pope. — David Letterman

Even though I grew up and I didn't always like getting dragged to the meetings or the rallies or the speeches, I developed a very strong respect for participating in a democratic process. — Julian Castro

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away. — Fidel Castro

If someone is responsible, it's me, — Fidel Castro

The percentage of mentally disturbed people in the United States is very high. From the time the American gets up in the morning, he feels as if someone is trying to influence his will in some way: he is a person with a thousand pressures. The Americans live under a great strain ... and have great feelings of frustration. — Fidel Castro

The number one way that we can address these long-term challenges of poverty, of education, is to invest in early childhood education. — Julian Castro

We have the lowest student-teacher ratio and spend five times as much on schools than war - the opposite of what the United States does. [explaining why Cuba has the highest literacy in the world] — Fidel Castro

There were so many Cuban-Americans upset that we were going to Cuba and I was curious to see why they were so angry, and anti-Castro. I found out as soon as we got there. The people were treated terrible. The conditions were terrible. I can see why people risk their lives and limbs to get out. (Fidel Castro) lives like a king and won't help anybody, and has everybody scared to death. Nobody lives a normal life. It was still a good experience, but I thought we should just play that one game. — Albert Belle

In a June 25, 2010, Washington Post article, the CIA acknowledged officially
discussing the creation of a video of a fake Saddam Hussein having sex with a
teenage boy in order to discredit him in the eyes of the Iraqi people. Evidently,
the Agency did create a video of a fake Osama Bin Laden drinking liquor
around a campfire with his cronies, bragging about their conquests of young
boys. The article quoted an anonymous former CIA officer "chuckling" at the
memory, and declaring that the actors used in the video were drawn from
"some of us darker-skinned employees." These ridiculous clandestine ideas
brought to mind the childish efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro forty years
earlier. — Donald Jeffries

Management's never been interested in really doing the job, not at any point in human history. Management's true agenda has always been making things more pleasant for Management. - Lastogne — Adam-Troy Castro

Here in Florida, we know plenty about the Castro brothers, and we hear stories of their ruthless and violent rule far too often. It is shameful that we would grant them any shred of legitimacy. — Rick Scott

It's all right that there are things that you do not get over, not really. You just go on, knowing that the things you love could be stripped from you at any moment, remembering to love them now.
It makes you human. You try to be decent and treat people gently, knowing that they, too, have their scars and madness that, like yours, do not show. — Joy Castro

Why do you think there's so many thousands of Cuban doctors in Florida? Because they all had to leave Cuba. Because doctors were rich, and so the [Fidel] Castro government began confiscating all their property. Not much different from this plan to tax you at a higher rate if you and your family, you and your spouse make over $250,000. You're rich! So they must confiscate more your money. — Rafael Cruz

I have reached the conclusion, a bit late perhaps, that speeches should be short. — Fidel Castro

Nowhere in the world, in no act of genocide, in no war, are so many people killed per minute, per hour and per day as those who are killed by hunger and poverty on our planet. — Fidel Castro

Hell if I know. I'm twenty-six, single, just signed a year lease on an apartment ... " She touched her eyebrows with her fingertips. "Damn, why did I move back here?"
"Sorry." I grimaced. "The job market isn't as bad as it was. I'd give you a job if you really needed one."
"Thanks. Not sure how good of a bouncer I would be."
"Maybe hair holder for drunk girls."
"Sounds great," she said flatly then made a gagging sound. — Nicole Castro

Some time ago, the United States was an English colony. If an Englishman were asked if the United States would be independent, he would have said no, that it would always be an English colony. — Fidel Castro

What exactly does the I in FBI stand for?" ~Maggie Mae Castro — Beth Yarnall

If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in Che's spirit! If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without a single stain on his action, is Che! — Fidel Castro

So these Red Sox ... are they a Communist organization? — Fidel Castro

The fact is, when men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can isolate them - neither prison walls nor the sod of cemeteries. For single memory, a single spirit, a single idea, a single conscience, a single dignity will sustain them all. — Fidel Castro

The truth is that after several decades of neoliberalism, the rich are becoming increasingly richer while the poor are both more numerous and increasingly poorer. — Fidel Castro

If religious feeling is put in opposition to social change, then it does become an opium, but if it is joined to the struggle for social change then it is a wonderful medicine. — Fidel Castro

I want to be able to pick up a list of names of graduates from high schools and colleges in the city and to see that that list is longer than it was when I started in 2009. — Julian Castro

Some people are lucky enough to borrow money from their parents, but that shouldn't determine whether you can pursue your dreams. — Julian Castro

A decent man who doesn't consider himself a bigot can indeed be trained to behave like a bigot if he welcomes feedback exclusively from those who consider bigotry no big deal or, indeed, an attribute to be admired. — Adam-Troy Castro

It's a significant contribution if we can get immigration reform done. — Julian Castro

Cuban eyes often look close to tears. Tears never seem far away because both their pain and their joy are always so close to the surface. — Brin-Jonathan Butler

There are examples of fraternal dictatorships, or one, anyway: the passing of power from Fidel to Raul Castro. — Elliott Abrams

Mitt Romney has undergone an extreme makeover, and it ain't pretty. — Julian Castro

It is good to preserve the name, wealth, and honors you inherit, but it is better in every way if you yourself create a position and a name. The first requires good sense, but the second demands willpower and great virtue. — Roman Baldorioty De Castro

[Castro is] a source of inspiration to the world. — Naomi Campbell

Che abandoned his first wife, Hilda, a Peruvian woman of Indian extraction, for a taller, blonder trophy wife (also named Aleida). Their 1959 wedding in Havana was the social event of the year and featured Raul Castro as "best man." After he married Aleida, Che would continue to "upgrade" his women, taking the worldly Tamara "Tania" Bunke, born of German parents in Argentina, as his mistress. — Humberto Fontova

I could only nod as emotions rolled in like a destructive storm. This was it. It was over. My incredible time with this beautiful talented man was up. I had to clench my teeth and swallow hard to mask the loss that threatened to overcome my calm exterior. I was holding on for dear life then he said two words with pure tranquility. — Nicole Castro

Castro has lived almost his entire life as a clandestine revolutionary. To such figures, truth is always malleable, always subservient to political goals. — Stephen Kinzer

While guidebooks might tell you that time collapsed here, another theory says that in Latin America, all of history coexists at once. — Brin-Jonathan Butler

To what extent did Castro at this point conceal secret communist purposes? He later said that he hid radical views in order to hold the anti-Batista coalition together, and this was probably true. But, though a radical, there is no conclusive evidence that he was then a Communist or even a Marxist-Leninist. Whatever he later became, he began as a romantic, left-wing nationalist - in his own phrase, a "utopian Socialist." He had tried to read Das Kapital at the University of Havana but, according to his own account, bogged down on page 370. — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don't accept is the idea that some folks won't even get a chance. — Julian Castro

I talk about any number of things on my Facebook space. Politics. Current events. The writing life. The latest tempests in a teapot centering on fandom. Daily doings from my own life. My cats, for crying out loud. Flights of humorous fantasy. Books, both those I've read and those I've written. Movies. And occasionally, TV shows. — Adam-Troy Castro

Someday, the capitalist system will disappear in the United States, because no social class system has been eternal. One day, class societies will disappear. — Fidel Castro

We believe that housing is a power platform to spark great opportunities in people's lives and help them achieve the American dream. — Julian Castro

Technology has transformed how we live, learn and work, but not everyone has been able to participate in these developments. — Julian Castro

A lot of folks feel like my brother and me or other politicians chart out their careers from Day 1 until the end. I've never been like that. — Joaquin Castro

I believe that Secretary Clinton has said, has acknowledged, that that was not the best way to handle her emails back then ... and has turned over all of the information and the emails and documents and now the server. — Julian Castro

Robert Conquest once suggested that 'a curious little volume might be made of the poems of Stalin, Castro, Mao and Ho Chi Minh, with illustrations by A. Hitler. — Martin Amis

First thing that I put up in my office here at City Hall was a poster from 1971 when my mother ran for city council. — Julian Castro

Unfortunately, writing and reporting the truth is not allowed under Castro's tyrannical dictatorship. — Lincoln Diaz-Balart

Occasionally I glanced at the big blue cradle of civilization hanging in the sky, remembered for the fiftieth or sixtieth or one hundredth time that none of this had any right to be happening, and reminded myself for the fiftieth or sixtieth or one hundredth time that the only sane response was to continue carrying the tune. — Adam-Troy Castro

There's some new evidence that has just come out about the CIA planning terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in the '60s and how they were going to set up Castro for it in order to get America behind a war in Cuba. — Aaron McGruder

I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today. — Robert McNamara

There are countries that send us garbage. There are countries that send us their outdated technology as their cooperation. With Fidel [Castro] it is totally different. Fidel is the first and the best one to stand for peace in the world denouncing the interventionist policies of the U.S. — Evo Morales

Quality of life lies in knowledge, in culture. Values are what constitute true quality of life, the supreme quality of life, even above food, shelter and clothing. — Fidel Castro

A smart policy should be one that tends to receive the capitals, pays the price for that capital - which is the interest - returns the capital and in the end the factories, the industries, are left to remain in the country. — Fidel Castro

Seven presidents before him - Democrats and Republicans - tried to expand health care to all Americans. President Obama got it done. — Julian Castro

The ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illness, poverty or hunger. — Fidel Castro

Think hard about it: I'm running out of demons. I'm running out of villians. I'm down to Castro and Kim Il Sung. — Colin Powell

I don't think it is so difficult to solve the problems between Cuba and the United States; it all depends on whether there is a dialogue, a discussion, or if the prejudices and hatred of people like the extremists and terrorists from the Cuban community, who try to impose their policies, prevail. — Fidel Castro

I never perceived a contradiction in the political revolutionary field between the ideas I maintained and the idea of that symbol, that extraordinary figure who had been so familiar to me since I began to reason. — Fidel Castro

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. — Monte Irvin

The one consistent policy running through this [Clinton] administration is the love it has lavished on Marxists
food aid for North Korea, diplomatic recognition of the Hanoi regime, chronic kowtowing to Beijing and now doing Castro's dirty work. How can the Clinton gang
which carried the Viet Cong flag during anti-war demonstrations and decorated their dorm rooms with pictures of Che Guevara
not feel contempt for people who insist, with every fiber of their being, that communism is mankind's mortal enemy? — Don Feder

You Americans keep saying that Cuba is ninety miles from the United States. I say that the United States is ninety miles from Cuba and for us, that is worse. — Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro declared that a robot would do a better job as president than Barack Obama. After hearing this, Mitt Romney thanked Castro for his endorsement. — Conan O'Brien

Intelligence reports say Castro is very worried about me. I'm very worried that we can't come up with something to justify his worrying. — Ronald Reagan

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. — Tom Wolfe

Cuba has the cleanest and most-educated prostitutes in the world. — Fidel Castro

I believe that all of us ought to retire relatively young. — Fidel Castro

Ignorance is the root of many ills. Knowledge must be the fundamental ally of nations that aspire, despite all their tragedies and problems, to become truly emancipated, to build a better world. — Fidel Castro

I still believe the momentum is there to accomplish comprehensive immigration reform, and I think there is a bipartisan coalition that would pass right now, a pathway to citizenship if Speaker Boehner lets it come to the floor. — Joaquin Castro

My response to those who still try to justify Castro's tyranny with the excuse that he has built schools and hospitals is this: Stalin, Hitler and Pinochet also built schools and hospitals, and like Castro, they also tortured and assassinated opponents. They built concentration and extermination camps and eradicated all liberties, committing the worst crimes against humanity. — Armando Valladares

Hillary Clinton supported concessions to the Castro brothers and got almost nothing in return for ending the embargo. — Chris Christie

I am someone who's been in politics for 43 years and I know what I'm doing and what I should do. Have no doubt that I know how to tell the truth and to do so elegantly. — Fidel Castro

In recent years, we have seen the United States back away from pressuring the Castro regime, under the misguided view that placating them with an open hand would yield progress. That naivete has invited only more cruelty and oppression in return. — Mitt Romney

North Americans don't understand ... that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity. — Fidel Castro

These poor deluded and amiable creatures, who have no notion of who they themselves are and are therefore incapable of making their own future. If they really get around to knowing who they are and why they are, maybe one day they will be able to assume the reins of their own collective destiny. — Americo Castro

I will not speak of him as if he were absent, he has not been and he will never be. These are not mere words of consolation. Only those of us who feel it truly and permanently in the depths of our souls can comprehend this. Physical life is ephemeral, it passes inexorably ... This truth should be taught to every human being
that the immortal values of the spirit are above physical life. What sense does life have without these values? What then is it to live? Those who understand this and generously sacrifice their physical life for the sake of good and justice
how can they die? God is the supreme idea of goodness and justice. — Fidel Castro

The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs. — Fidel Castro

I know that Oswald killed Kennedy. Now, was he pushed? Encouraged to do it by outsiders? Possibly. Possibly. Was he sitting down with Fidel Castro? No. — Bill O'Reilly

Today Obama was seen leaving the White House in a nurse's uniform on a flight to Cuba to smother Castro with a pillow. — Bill Maher

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America? — Fidel Castro

It's time to remove the stigma associated with promoting homeownership. — Julian Castro

The prosperity of the United States and the prosperity of the Hispanic community, as the fastest-growing community, are one and the same. The destinies are one and the same. — Julian Castro

I think a lot of people saw 'Fight Club' and thought, 'Right, here's our next Che Guevara, here's our next Fidel Castro, here's someone who's going to wave the flag.' And I was like, 'No, it's just a book. And if I beat that drum, if I play that song one more time, I won't have a career.' — Chuck Palahniuk

A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past. — Fidel Castro

There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied. — Fidel Castro

How can someone live with their own conscience when you reward a domestic terrorist with continued safety and betray the family of fallen police officer waiting for decades for justice for his murder? So let's ask the question. Hillary Clinton as a coddler of the brutal Castro brothers and betrayer of the family of fallen state trooper Werner Foerster and his family. — Chris Christie

Music isn't what I do. It's who I am. — Raquel Castro

All times are beautiful for those who maintain joy within them; but there is no happy or favorable time for those with disconsolate or orphaned souls. — Rosalia De Castro

Ageing is not easy, Senhora Castro. It's a terrible, incurable pathology. And great love is another pathology. — Yann Martel

We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its ... Did I say socialism? — Fidel Castro

The charismatic portrait of the modern leadership looks nothing like Fidel Castro. It is a faceless portrait that epitomizes the toughness of Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela's charisma, and the most compassionate heart of Mother Theresa. — Anthony Obi Ogbo

I had the blessing of opportunity. You need the folks in the boardroom who have consciences and the people in the streets who can picket at the right time. — Julian Castro

The Castro government is disproportionately white given the color of the island. It doesn't look like Cuba. — Mark Falcoff

If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal. — Fidel Castro

I have covered wars, before the epidemic began and since. They are all ugly and painful and unjust, but for me, nothing has matched the dread I felt while walking through the Castro, the Village, or Dupont Circle at the height of the AIDS epidemic. — Michael Specter

I would not vote for the mayor. It's not just because he didn't invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes. — Fidel Castro

How can we help President Obama? — Fidel Castro

Hysterical? Neuractic? I am all that ain't more than juggernaut! — Fidel Castro

[M]y mother fought hard for civil rights so that instead of a mop, I could hold this microphone. And while she may be proud of me tonight, I've got to tell you, Mom, I'm even more proud of you. Thank you, Mom. — Julian Castro

Most people who know Cuba think Raul [Castro] would like to make more changes but has not done so yet because his brother, who is ideologically opposed to them, is still alive. What he will do when Fidel dies remains to be seen. — Mark Falcoff

As long as Fidel Castro is alive we [the American Government] will not normalize relations with Cuba. We don't want it, and he certainly doesn't. — Mark Falcoff