Cuban Quotes & Sayings

If you are active online or texting, there is a good chance I could look at what you do and know more about you than your family. — Mark Cuban

The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity or Libertad Act of 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton Act, was passed by the 104th United States Congress on March 6, 1996 and enacted into law by President Bill Clinton on March 12, 1996. Its intention was to bolster and continue the United States embargo against Cuba. It also opposes Cuban membership in international institutions, and prohibits commercial television broadcasts from the United States to Cuba. Further, the law provides for protection of the property rights of certain United States nationals and the property formerly owned by U.S. citizens but confiscated by Cuba after the Cuban revolution, The Act is named for the original sponsors, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Representative Dan Burton of Indiana. — Hank Bracker

Social media is just a platform. Twitter is a very simple and immediate broadcast platform. Facebook is a very personal, when it comes to friends and when it comes to fan pages, a little bit less but still somewhat personal way to communicate. — Mark Cuban

When I started writing this blog more than years ago, it was in response to traditional media's habit of twisting interviews to fit the headlines they wanted to create. — Mark Cuban

You need a place where you can explain yourself. You can write as much or as little as you would like, but the words will be all yours. You can create the context. You can make sure that all issues are addressed. You can take issue with individuals or the media as a whole. Your words, your message. — Mark Cuban

If Ayn Rand were an up-and-coming author today, she wouldn't write about steel or railroads, it would be Net Neutrality. — Mark Cuban

Executives should blog if they have a vision they are trying to communicate, or if they are very visible in the media. — Mark Cuban

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

The only thing in your control is effort. That's all, and that's everything. — Mark Cuban

The stock market's handling of new technology is kind of a joke. We have seen CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg, and the like turn into home-shopping networks for stocks. Fund managers and analysts go on TV and sell what's shiny and easy to sell. — Mark Cuban

In January 1961, the United States severed diplomatic relations in response to Cuban nationalisation of U.S.-owned sugar plantations, banks and businesses. — Tariq Ali

I had a chance to play for the Cuban national team during the 2009 World Baseball Classic, but at the time I never thought about leaving Cuba. — Yoenis Cespedes

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 worked in the mechanical factories repairing cement trucks. The Cuban government wanted me to work in the university as a teacher in literature, but I declined because I wanted a more sense of the countryside. — Huey Newton

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

Try telling a Cuban: 'You should pay higher rent, or pay for your own healthcare' ... There is no serious opposition to the current government. — Saul Landau

I think that any reporter or columnist will be a little more careful when doing interviews with me. — Mark Cuban

I'm crafting a vision of my life that involves creativity. And Cuban society allows me to do this. I know it's harder in the U.S. where so many people are just grateful to have a job. — Assata Shakur

A sense of the Finn's presence surrounded him, smell of Cuban cigarettes, smoke locked in musty tweed, old machines given up to the mineral rituals of rust. — William Gibson

Because there's such a long tradition of the arts being very prominent and very varied in Cuban culture and society, people do use the art world as a space for critical reflection and people look to it for that. — Rachael Price

Once you are prepared and you think you have every angle of preparation covered, you have to go for it. — Mark Cuban

Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you. — Mark Cuban

As processor speeds and shared processors create cheap unlimited processing power we will be able to turn our bodies into a math equation that can be crossed against the properties of medicine and nature to create medicine unique to each individual. — Mark Cuban

I was a beast in college. I worked hard and I played hard. I was relentless learning about business. I actually snuck into MBA classes my freshman and sophomore years. I wanted to challenge myself to see how I compared to the smartest kids at Indiana University so I was 18 and pretended I was an MBA student. — Mark Cuban

Patent law holds us back, in every which way, shape or form. There is place for it, in physical products, in pharmaceuticals, but in software in particular, there is no place for it. — Mark Cuban

What makes a good salesperson? Let me be clear that it's not the person who can talk someone into anything. It's not the hustler who is a smooth talker. The best salespeople are the ones who put themselves in their customer's shoes and provide a solution that makes the customer happy. — Mark Cuban

It's always the little decisions that have the biggest impact. — Mark Cuban

What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? It takes willingness to learn, to be able to focus, to absorb information, and to always realize that business is a 24/7 job where someone is always out there to kick your ass. — Mark Cuban

Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don't find one, it's you. — Mark Cuban

I'm a believer that you accomplish much, much more with direct relationships than by using an intermediary. And that cash you keep in the bank can be the difference between staying alive as a small business, or not. — Mark Cuban

There was a time when emigration from Cuba was a definitive separation. There were no visits. In the '80s, '90s, it was incredibly difficult. I'm not the only one interested in this as a filmmaker - other Cuban filmmakers have dealt with it, too, because it's such a part of our reality. — Fernando Perez

The sport of business is the ultimate competition. It's 7 x 24 x 365 x forever. — Mark Cuban

Maria Canals-Barrera is Cuban and from Miami and I'm part Cuban and from Miami, so needless to say she became a quick friend. — Bella Thorne

The moon was up now and the trees were dark against it, and he passed the frame houses with their narrow yards, light coming from the shuttered windows; the unpaved alleys, with their double rows of houses; Conch town, where all was starched, well-shuttered, virtue, failure, grit and boiled grunts, under-nourishment, prejudice, righteousness, inter-breeding and the comforts of religion; the open-doored, lighted Cuban boilto houses, shacks whose only romance was their names — Ernest Hemingway,

Somehow Chinese toxins fit right in with the Don's taste in gear. Austrian shotgun shells, Cuban baseball bats, Israeli silencers, Russian things he could only guess at - the Don was known for his upscale mob accessories. — Bruce Rousseau

Doesnt matter what your skill and physical gifts are if you cant get your head right. — Mark Cuban

I know I'm prejudiced, and I know I'm bigoted in a lot of different ways, — Mark Cuban

President Kennedy didn't negotiate out of the Cuban missile crisis simply because he and Khrushchev got along well. Khrushchev didn't have the cards. — Colin Powell

Being able to take a traditional cable-television subscriber and give them new widget type applications to me is huge. — Mark Cuban

Being successful entails being able to not only get along with people, but also to give something back — Mark Cuban

I never look at the glass as half empty or half full. I look to see who is pouring the water and deal with them. — Mark Cuban

As luck would have it, Caleb appeared at supper that night. His uniform had been shaken out and pressed, and his butterscotch hair gleamed with cleanliness. He brought Cuban cigars for Rupert and a delicate china figurine for Lily. She looked at him in bewilderment, and he smiled at her as though there had been no disagreement at the front gate only a few hours earlier. — Linda Lael Miller

I think you've got to be very, very careful when you start making blanket statements about what people say and think, as opposed to what they do. It's a very, very slippery slope. — Mark Cuban

Well, this is us, Jack. Cuban cane rum and yanqui Coca-Cola; Cuba Libre, 'free Cuba'. Only we call this cocktail 'ha-ha' now, because there's no Cuba and no freedom. Salad! — Jaxy Mono

I grew up eating Cuban food all the time. — Ted Cruz

The Higher Education Industry is very analogous to the Newspaper industry. By the time they realize they need to change the costs to support their legacy infrastructure and costs will keep them from getting there. — Mark Cuban

Love makes the world go around, but so does a gallon of vodka and a box of Cuban cigars. — Lois Greiman

Hey everyone. This is Elizabeth Stone, the one who wrote a A BOY I ONCE KNEW and BLACK SHEEP AND KISSING COUSINS. To those of you who read either one, thanks! But another Elizabeth Stone, not me, wrote WOMEN AND THE CUBAN REVOLUTION and VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. Just setting the record straight! — Elizabeth Stone

The truth is, no one wants to face the fact that there was a huge double standard in baseball, and white athletes like Mark McGwire, Cal Ripken Jr., and Brady Anderson were protected and coddled in a way that an outspoken Latino like me never would be. The light-eyed and white-skinned were declared household names. Canseco the Cuban was left out in the cold, where racism and double standards rule. — Jose Canseco

I think one of the biggest curses in the U.S. is that we have only two political parties. — Mark Cuban

I can turn an idea into a business before you know it's going to be important. My first step will blow by you. — Mark Cuban

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that we lie to ourselves. We don't step back and look at ourselves like a competitor would. — Mark Cuban

Do the work. Out-work. Out-think. Out-sell your expectations. There are no shortcuts. — Mark Cuban

In every job, I would justify it in my mind, whether I loved it or hated it, that I was getting paid to learn and every experience would be of value when I figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up. — Mark Cuban

I already had three strikes against me. One, I have light skin. Two, I'm from Miami, which wasn't getting looked at at the time. Three, I'm Cuban. But now, I've made everything that stacked against me into a virtue. — Pitbull

YouTube has gotten so big that you're not a standard unless YouTube adopts you. And that's a big fight. — Mark Cuban

For tech, I like the 'DailySearchCast', 'TWiT' and anything Veronica Belmont does on CNET. I think Perez Hilton is a riot, and the rest of my consumption is by people: Folks like Dave Winer, Fred Wilson, Mark Cuban, Brian Alvey, Jeff Jarvis, Xeni Jardin, etc. — Jason Calacanis

Perfectionism is the enemy of profitability. — Mark Cuban

Ry Cooder for me is a master, a great master that has a wonderful feel for Cuban music. He's also paid tribute my talent a bit, even though I don't know half of what he knows. — Compay Segundo

Most people think money is the key to reducing risk. Prepartion is. — Mark Cuban

OUCH

"The arrabal (a term used for poor neighbourhoods in Argentina and Uruguay) and carpa (informal mobile theatre set up inside tents, once common in Latin America), with their caliente (hot) rhythms such as the rumba or the cha-cha-cha, were conquering audiences all over the world, a trend allegorised in song lyrics about their popularity among the French and other non-Latin Americans - "The Frenchman has fun like this/as does the German/and the Irishman has a ball/as does even the Muslim" ("Cachita") - even as they filtered in the presence of a blackness - "and if you want to dance/look for your Cachita/and tell her "Come on negrita"/let's dance" - denied in the official discourse of those Spanish=speaking countries wielding the greatest economic power in the region: namely, Argentina and Mexico, the latter of which would eventually incorporate Afro-Latin American culture into its cinema - although being careful to mark it as Cuban and not Mexican. — Robert McKee Irwin

Papa was no longer fixing a carburetor: he was setting up a greasy little Cuban missile base smack-dab in the middle of Mama's immaculate Washington, D.C. It was a flagrant act of war. — David James Duncan

Recessions are the best time to start a company. Companies fail. Others hold back capital. If you are willing to do the preparation and work, it is the best time to invest in yourself and start a business. — Mark Cuban

The miracle of Grenada is how quickly the Cuban workers beat their plowshares into Soviet AK-47s. — William Cohen

I begged Ana to shut them up, come out as Cuban, play the jail card. But she refused to claim that authority. 'It will mean you, as a Kentucky girl, have nothing valuable to say about Cuba. And Cubans have nothing to say about the rest of the world. — Kelly J. Cogswell

If it had anything to do with the PC or networking industry I was on top of it. I bought manuals. I read every book and magazine. Then I would get involved with industry conferences and put myself out there. — Mark Cuban

You can't get good chinese takeout in China and cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism. — P. J. O'Rourke

With every effort, I learned a lot. With every mistake and failure, not only mine, but of those around me, I learned what not to do. I also got to study the success of those I did business with as well. I had more than a healthy dose of fear, and an unlimited amount of hope, and more importantly, no limit on time and effort. — Mark Cuban

Cuban mechanics obviously have to be the best mechanics in the world.They're going to figure out all sorts of things to do. — Jeffrey Goldberg

To understand our world, we must use a revolving globe and look at the earth from various vantage points. If we do so, we will see that the Atlantic is but a bridge linking the colorful, tropical Afro-Latin American world, whose strong ethnic and cultural bonds have been preserved to this day. For a Cuban who arrives in Angola, neither the climate, nor the landscape, nor the food are strange. For a Brazilian, even the language is the same. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

It doesn't matter where you live ... It doesn't matter how you live. It doesn't matter what car you drive. It doesn't matter what kind of clothes you wear. — Mark Cuban

Effort is measured by setting goals and getting results. — Mark Cuban

Only morons start a business on a loan? — Mark Cuban

If a Cuban refugee is escaping, we're saying they're a political refugee, but why isn't a Haitian refugee a political refugee? They're escaping the capitalism and degradation of economic imperialism. We don't call them political refugees; we call them unfortunate people. — Ian Svenonius

What I do know, at least what I think I have learned from my experiences in business, is that when there is a rush for everyone to do the same thing, it becomes more difficult to do. Not easier. Harder. — Mark Cuban

It's not in the dreaming, it's in the doing. — Mark Cuban

I rarely think the market is right. I believe non dividend stocks aren't much more than baseball cards. They are worth what you can convince someone to pay for it. — Mark Cuban

I'm the guy who will persist in his path. I'm the guy who will make you laugh. I'm the guy who strives to be open. I'm the guy who's been heartbroken. I'm the guy who has been on his own, and I'm the guy who's felt alone. I'm the guy who holds your hand, and I'm the guy who will stand up and be a man. I'm the guy who tries to make things better. I'm the guy who's the whitest half Cuban ever. I'm the guy who's lost more than he's won. I'm the guy who's turn, but never spun. I'm the guy you couldn't see. I'm that guy, and that guy is me. — Blake Jenner

Big D. November '63. He was there that Big Weekend. He caught the Big Moment and took this Big Ride.
He was a sergeant on Vegas PD. He was married. He had a chemistry degree. His father was a big Mormon fat cat. Wayne Senior was jungled up all over the nut Right. He did Klan ops for Mr. Hoover and Dwight Holly. He pushed high-line hate tracts. He rode the far-Right zeitgeist and stayed in the know. He knew about the JFK hit. It was multi-faction: Cuban exiles, rogue CIA, mob. Senior bought Junior a ticket to ride.
Extradition job with one caveat: kill the extraditee. — James Ellroy

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

In business, one of the challenges is making sure that your product is the easiest to experience and complete a sale. — Mark Cuban

In Texas, if your name is Carlos, you're a Mexican. In Florida, you're a Cuban. In New York, you're a Puerto Rican. And I come here and I find out I'm an Eskimo. — Carlos Mencia

Can't say no one makes money from Twitter now. The NBA does. — Mark Cuban

Sports, music, movies - basically, fans of any form of entertainment don't do a resume analysis before picking their favorite. — Mark Cuban

I smoke really good cigars, I don't smoke Cuban cigars. I would never do anything as Un-American as smoke a decent cigar. — Ron White

All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal. — Mark Cuban

Don't get caught up in how many hours you work. Judge success based on having goals and measuring your results. Hard work, and lots of it, is certainly needed, but focus on what you get done. — Mark Cuban

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

If given a choice between investing in someone who has read REWORK or has an MBA, I'm investing in REWORK every time. A must read for every entrepreneur. — Mark Cuban

The first cities to create friction-free enterprise zones will get a lot of entrepreneurial traction. — Mark Cuban

A long list. From getting cut from the high school basketball team, to getting fired from jobs, getting credit cards rejected and cut up. Rejection has only been a distraction, not a roadblock. "Every no gets me closer to a yes," was the saying I used to use. — Mark Cuban

Such are contrasts we see every day in the world. Joy and Sorrow! But Joy is an exile from Heaven who does not remain in any one place. Sorrow is a son of Hell who does not release his prey until he has torn it to pieces. — Gertrudis Gomez De Avellaneda

When I was a little kid wanting to play music, it was because of people like Pete Johnson, Huey Smith, Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair, James Booker, Art Neville ... there was so many piano players I loved in New Orleans. Then there was guys from out of town that would come cut there a lot. There was so many great bebop piano players, so many great jazz piano players, so many great Latin piano players, so many great blues piano players. Some of those Afro-Cuban bands had some killer piano players. There was so many different things going on musically, and it was all of interest to me. — Dr. John

On February 8, 1928, known as Lindbergh day since it was the day he crossed the Atlantic Ocean the year before, Charles A. Lindbergh landed at the Campo Columbia airfield near Havana. Lindbergh had visited many countries in his plane, and he had the national flags of each country painted in the fuselage. Having flown from Haiti, on a Goodwill Tour of the Caribbean in his "Spirit of St. Louis," he had the Cuban flag painted on his a single-engine Ryan monoplane. It was the last country he visited before he donated the "Spirit of St. Louis" to the Smithsonian Institution, where it is still exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. — Hank Bracker

Socially, the Cuban revolution created an education system and health service that remain the envy of much of the neo-liberal world. — Tariq Ali

Music is so essential to the Cuban character that you can't disentangle it from the history of the nation. the history of Cuban music is one of cultural collisions, of voluntary and forced migrations, of religions and revolutions. — Ned Sublette

It's often pointed out that in Cuban cinema there are too many comedies, but a sense of humor is so much part of the Cuban idiosyncrasy. Curiously, the films that have been censored the most have been humorous. — Fernando Perez

If you think back to the first sporting event you went to, you don't remember the score, you don't remember a home run, you don't remember a dunk. You remember who you were with. Were you with your mom, your dad, your brother, on a date? — Mark Cuban

What do the American people think? I am eager to know. I would like to believe the majority of Americans want to see Justice done, and they are not interested in financing the detention of innocent people. I know there is a small extremist minority that believes that everybody in this Cuban prison is evil, and that we are treated better than we deserve. But this opinion has no basis but ignorance. I am amazed that somebody can build such an incriminating opinion about people he or she doesn't even know. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

I also know that too many people talk too much, especially the American, who never shut up, just switch to a laugh every time he talk 'bout you, and it sound strange how he put your name beside people we never hear 'bout, Allende Lumumba, a name that sound like a country that Kunta Kinte come from. The American, most of the time hide him eye with sunglasses like he is a preacher from America come to talk to black people. Him and the Cuban come sometimes together, sometimes on they own, and when one talk the other always quiet. The Cuban don't fuck with guns because guns always need to be needed, him say. — Marlon James