Castro's Quotes & Sayings

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

My family's story isn't special. What's special is the America that makes our story possible. Ours is a nation like no other, a place where great journeys can be made in a single generation. No matter who you are or where you come from, the path is always forward. — Julian Castro

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

I don't think there is a 'gay lifestyle.' I think that's superficial crap, all that talk about gay culture. A couple of restaurants on Castro Street and a couple of magazines do not constitute culture. Michelangelo is culture. Virginia Woolf is culture. So let's don't confuse our terms. Wearing earrings is not culture ... — Rita Mae Brown

I am a book reviewer. I write for a glossy magazine called 'SCI FI.' The money is not life-changing, but it's a low-stress gig. Publishers send me their books. More than I could possibly read. I pick a few and write about them, put a very few others on the shelf, to be perused at my leisure, someday. — Adam-Troy Castro

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

Castro, without question, is one of the smartest politicians that's ever walked. — Steven Soderbergh

Particularly during the late 1960s, a large number of American skyjackers earnestly believed that Fidel Castro's Cuba was an egalitarian, post-racial utopia. — Brendan I. Koerner

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

Fetish is the exploration of sex as art, and the refinement of one's personal desires. Anything can be fetishised ... There'll be new fetishes forever. I feel that the 21st century is all about fetish. — Rick Castro

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

Let's overwhelm the Castro regime with iPhones, iPads, American cars and American ingenuity. — Rand Paul

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

Fidel Castro's justice, while seeking refuge with his rebel troops in the Sierra Maestra mountains, was harsh and the penalty for violating some of his rules was death." See page 286, "The Exciting Story of Cuba — Hank Bracker

I cannot personally imagine any U.S. president normalizing relations with him [Fidel Castro], as opposed to his brother, but I may prove wrong on this score. — Mark Falcoff

It's a real enigma why people are so averse to real free market capitalism even now. Here we are, in the century that has seen Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Castro, Pol Pot-and we're still being warned against the 'robber barons' of the 19th century. I don't know that Jay Gould or John D. Rockefeller ever killed anyone. The State has killed countless people, and yet we're always supposed to remain on guard against these 'greedy villains' of yesteryear. — Joseph Sobran

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

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

I have learned in life that the best thing you can do to create a great future for yourself is don't forget what's in front of you. And so I'm trying to do a great job at HUD. — Julian Castro

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

I have become convinced that hatred towards the U.S. has been a chief reason for Castro's longevity in power — Armando Valladares

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 don't think that the contradictions between capitalism and socialism can be resolved by war. This is no longer the age of the bow and arrow. It's the nuclear age, and war can annihilate us all. The only way to achieve solutions seems to be for the different social systems to coexist. — Fidel Castro

I was a man who was lucky enough to have discovered a political theory, a man who was caught up in the whirlpool of Cuba's political crisis ... ; discovering Marxism ... was like finding a map in the forest. — Fidel Castro

There has been a great challenge in improving educational achievement. It's a long-term issue, not a short-term one. It includes everything from getting more parents involved to addressing issues of poverty and improving what happens in the classroom. — Julian Castro

There's no doubt about it: Hillary is the best person to be our 45th president. Hillary has always been a tireless advocate for working families - she's never ceased to make sure everybody has a fair shot at achieving the American Dream. — Joaquin Castro

People are getting more active and living healthier in San Antonio, whether it's walking, cycling, or using our parks. We now have concrete evidence that our investments are paying off and positively impacting the health of our families and the overall quality of life in San Antonio. — Julian Castro

Help the Cubans to the utmost counseling his successor while handing over the reins. We cannot let Castro's government go on. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

In 2001, my co-workers at PayPal and I would often get lunch on Castro Street in Mountain View. We had our pick of restaurants, starting with obvious categories like Indian, sushi, and burgers. There were more options once we settled on a type: North Indian or South Indian, cheaper or fancier, and so on. In contrast to the competitive local restaurant market, PayPal was at that time the only email-based payments company in the world. We employed fewer people than the restaurants on Castro Street did, but our business was much more valuable than all of those restaurants combined. Starting a new South Indian restaurant is a really hard way to make money. If you lose sight of competitive reality and focus on trivial differentiating factors - maybe you think your naan is superior because of your great-grandmother's recipe - your business is unlikely to survive. — Peter Thiel

I am no apologist for Fidel's [Castro] regime. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime. So I would like to see that change. — John Gimlette

The Kennedy Administration's public pronouncements on the matter suggested that the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Castro's Cuba would represent an unacceptable strategic threat to the United States ... This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base - by the presence of these large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass-destruction - constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas ... — John F. Kennedy

Hopefully, in not a too distant future, we will see a Latino president, and who knows how's that going to happen. It's just a matter of time. — Julian Castro

It's worked! Our marriage has outlasted all of the world leaders, except for Castro. And if we keep talking, arguing, making love and dancing to the Ramones- it'll probably keep working. — Stephen King

Cuba is a wonderful country. What Castro's done is superb. — Helen Caldicott

Ageing is not easy, Sennhora Castro. It's a terrible, incurable pathology. And great love is another pathology. It starts well. It's a most desirable disease. One wouldn't want to do without it. It's like yeast that corrupts the juice of grapes. One loves, one loves, one persists in loving-the incubation period can be very long- and then, with death, comes the heart break. Love must always meet its unwanted end. — Yann Martel

Indeed, within Castro's periphery there evolved a bizarre mutation known oxymoronically as "liberation theology," where priests and even some bishops adopted "alternative" liturgies enshrining the ludicrous notion that Jesus of Nazareth was really a dues-paying socialist. For a combination of good and bad reasons (Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a man of courage and principle, in the way that some Nicaraguan "base community" clerics were not), the papacy put this down as a heresy. Would that it could have condemned fascism and Nazism in the same unhesitating and unambiguous tones. — Christopher Hitchens

I also argue that sin (or at least our thinking about it) has evolved significantly since the 1950s and continues to do so, such that Fidel Castro's confident cri de Coeur from the early 1960's, "History will absolve me," could work today for a great many religious Jews and Christians wrestling with their conscience. — John Portmann

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

The Tea Party definitely scored a significant victory with Senator Cruz's election in 2012 and scored victories in some statewide primaries. But to me, as the Tea Party gets stronger within the Republican Party in Texas, the prospect of a blue Texas becomes stronger and stronger. — Julian Castro

Bissell fingered his napkin. "I do, Mr. Boyd. And I know how generous Mr. Hoffa, Mr. Marcello and a few other Italian gentlemen have been to the Cause, and I know that you possess a certain amount of influence in the Kennedy camp. And as the President's chief Cuban-issue liaison, I also know that Fidel Castro and Communism are a good deal worse than the Mafia, although I wouldn't dream of asking you to intercede on our friends' behalf, because it might cost you credibility with your sacred Kennedys."
Stanton dropped his soup spoon. Pete let a big breath out eeeasy.
Boyd put out a big shit-eating grin. "I'm glad you feel that way, Mr. Bissell. Because if you did ask me, I'd have to tell you to go fuck yourself. — James Ellroy

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. — Nicolas Maduro

I turned on the water then returned to the door jamb. "That's not fair, you're nice and clean."
"I am?" He took a few steps toward me.
"Aren't you?"
"No," he scowled and shook his head. "I'm dirty. But you knew that."
Now, if you haven't heard an Irishman say the word "dirty" before, I will compare it with dynamite in your ovaries. They say it with like, seven Rs. — Nicole Castro

I've had meetings with Fidel Castro. I've had meetings with Kim Il-Sung. I've had meetings with other dictators. I've met with the Butcher of Beijing. You know, I think it's important to hear, you know, each other's perspective. — Gary Ackerman

The moon is fat, but half of her is missing. A ruler-straight line divides her dark side from her light. She hangs low over the bustling Castro, noticeably earlier than the night before. Autumn is coming. For as long as I can remember, I've talked to the moon. Asked her for guidance. There's something deeply spiritual about her pale glow, her cratered surface, her waxing and waning. She wears a new dress every evening, yet she's always herself. — Stephanie Perkins

Unbelievably, while many non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International and America's Watch have denounced the human rights situation in Cuba, there has been a continuing love affair on the part of the media and many intellectuals with Fidel Castro. — Armando Valladares

I consider myself a pretty progressive person, and I think I have a track record that shows that. But I'm also not just going to do a policy because it's the liberal thing to do. — Julian Castro

President Obama announced that he's going to reopen diplomatic relations with Cuba. He wants to act before Seth Rogen makes a movie about Castro. — Conan O'Brien

[My mother] closed the school the next day [after a visit from Castro's soldiers], because she knew that the purpose of education was the broadening and opening of children's minds. And she couldn't be a party to the systematic closing of minds, borders, freedoms and ideals. — Gloria Estefan

I grew up in a Texas where people would say, 'I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.' Now, the reverse is happening. People are leaving the Republican Party because the Republican Party is going too far to the right in Texas. And that's a source of great potential support for Democrats. — Julian Castro

In August 1961, I visited President Kennedy at Hyannis Port. The Berlin Wall was going up, and he was about to begin a huge military buildup - reluctantly, or so he said, as he puffed on a cigar liberated by a friend from Castro's Cuba. — Gore Vidal

I'm not attached to anything.
I'm attached to what it feels it's my duty, to do my duty.
I think that I will die with the boots on. — Fidel Castro

I won't perform in Cuba until there's no more Castro and there's a free Cuba. To me, Cuba's the biggest prison in the world, and I would be very hypocritical were I to perform there. — Pitbull

President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus, even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castro's Cuba. He abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments, but is eager to give Russia's President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election. Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone. — Mitt Romney

I have very liberal parents. People forget that Fidel Castro was on the cover of 'Time' magazine, and the one that I remember the most - it's not necessarily my favorite - was when they dressed me as Castro when I was eight years old. I was in fatigues, camouflage hat, beard and cigar. I don't think I did that well with candy that year. — Robert Englund

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

San Antonio is an ideal market for Major League Soccer. It's time that we put our best foot forward. — Julian Castro

Pedro of Portugal's rapt and bizarre declaration of love, in 1356, for the embalmed corpse of his murdered wife, Inez de Castro, who swayed beside him on his travels, leather-brown and skeletal, crowned with lace and gold circlet, hung about with chains of diamonds and pearls, her bone-fingers fantastically ringed. — A.S. Byatt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How can we help President Obama? — Fidel Castro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe, — Fidel Castro

Forgive me for using the term 'fat little brother' ... It is not a criticism, rather a suggestion that he do some exercises and go on a diet, don't you think? I'm doing this for the gentleman's health. — Fidel Castro

The only part of my mother's experience that still gets to me is the way she and people like her were looked down upon for asking America to be America, for asking for full and equal participation in our democracy. — Julian Castro

Since becoming mayor in 2009, Julian has worked tirelessly to pursue policies that honor the aspirations of the people he represents. I'm proud that my brother has achieved his dreams, but I'm even more proud of the work he's done to help others achieve theirs. — Joaquin Castro

My grandmother's generation and generations before always saw beyond the horizons of their own lives and their own circumstances. They believed that opportunity created today would lead to prosperity tomorrow. — Julian Castro

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.' — Jesse Ventura

The Central Intelligence Agency, America's best-known spy shop. In that fearful post-Joe McCarthy era, when assassinated JFK had publicly loved James Bond and secretly been entangled in covert intrigues like assassination plots against Cuba's Fidel Castro outsourced to the Mafia by our spies, the CIA was a myth-shrouded invisible army. In those pre-Internet days before electronic books, Web sites with varied credibility, and search — James Grady

How a man who holds the entire population of a country as his prisoners, and punishes the families of those who escape, can be admired by people who call themselves liberals is one of the many wonders of the human mind's ability to rationalize. Yet such is the case with Fidel Castro. — Thomas Sowell

One of the achievements of which I am most proud was the codification, the writing into U.S. law, of the U.S. embargo on the Castro dictatorship. — Lincoln Diaz-Balart

Fish held the silence for so long that I had to restrain myself from prodding her. That's never a good idea. Sometimes people hesitate because they don't have the courage to come out with whatever needs to be said; other times they desperately want to speak but can't find the words. Jabbing them prematurely tends to shut them up. Outwaiting them gives them the time to say more than they intend. — Adam-Troy Castro

If you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in people's rights, if you believe in the harmony of all humankind - then you have no choice but to back Fidel Castro as long as it takes! — Harry Belafonte

In Cuba we have one party, but in the U.S. there is very little difference. Both parties are an expression of the ruling class. — Raul Castro

As a state legislator, I had worked with Republicans and Democrats to pass a number of bills, including some related to higher education and juvenile justice; I'd created what would become San Antonio's largest book drive and literacy campaign. — Joaquin Castro

If you think that because you're Che, when you go into Bolivia, when people find out it's you, that they're going to have the same kind of reaction that the Cubans had to Castro, then you're high. — Steven Soderbergh

As a result of their own experience in a country with historical social mobility, American policy makers are often blind to deeply embedded social stratifications that characterize other societies. The only successful political revolution in the western hemisphere that also resulted in a social revolution was that of Fidel Castro's Cuba in 1959, a revolution that the United States spent the next fifty-plus years trying to contain or reverse. — Francis Fukuyama

Republicans are so far out to the right, it's pushing people into the Democratic Party. — Julian Castro

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. — Sirio Maccioni

I have real fears for Cuba based on the South American experience. Where you have had such a stern regime, as Fidel's [Castro], there is no culture of politics. — John Gimlette

John F. Kennedy, who seized the White House from Richard Nixon in a frenzied campaign that turned a whole generation of young Americans into political junkies, got shot in the head for his efforts, murdered in Dallas by some hapless geek named Oswald who worked for either Castro, the mob, Jimmy Hoffa, the CIA, his dominatrix landlady or the odious, degenerate FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. The list is long and crazy - maybe Marilyn Monroe's first husband fired those shots from the grassy knoll. Who knows? — Hunter S. Thompson

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

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