“Not only to myself or before the mirror or at the hour of my death, which I hope will be long in coming, but in the presence of my children and my wife and in the face of the peaceful life I’m building, I must acknowledge: (1) That under Stalin I wouldn’t have wasted my youth in the gulag or ended up with a bullet in the back of my head. (2) That in the McCarthy era I wouldn’t have lost my job or had to pump gas at a gas station. (3) That under Hitler, however, I would have been one of those who chose the path of exile, and that under Franco I wouldn’t have composed sonnets to the caudillo or the Holy Virgin like so many lifelong democrats. One thing is as true as the other. My bravery has its limits, certainly, but so does what I’m willing to swallow. Everything that begins as comedy ends as tragicomedy.”

“Intelligence comes with hard work and curiosity for the unknown.”

“Nothing good ever comes of love. What comes of love is always something better”

“Money is the most corrosive aspect of life today because it means that all attention to detail is forgotten.”

“I'm a storyteller: the crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry; it doesn't matter if that is comedy or tragedy. They're the same if you reach the beauty.”

“Without forgiveness life is governed by... an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”

“Leopard is an animal design, and my designs come from nature.”

“If I had the medical clearance to fight, I would want to fight the best. The best would be Mayweather.”

“I am convinced that God wanted me to be a baseball player.”

“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth.”

“I really admire a woman for her intelligence, her personality. Beauty is not enough.”