"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."

"The music that I play and that I like is traditional music, maybe it's because of my age."

"Young people don't want to be second to anyone. Everyone wants to be an overnight star. Look how many years I had to wait, how many roads I had to travel, how many songs I had to sing. And now I'm just beginning, never ending."

"I'll only stop singing when I'm in my grave."

"Every time I talk about this, I say: when the singer is singing, he must be respected, you must be able to hear what he's saying. You can't put a trombone and a drum up there, and a microphone on the drum, microphones on everybody. You can't hear what he's saying."

"I play music the way it was played in yesteryear."

"I don't sit in the corner waiting for death: death has to pursue me. I'm going strong. I hope to reach 100 and ask for an extension, just like my grandmother did."

"In order to grow old, you have to experience everything, but in moderation."

"When it comes to musicians, I'm like the daddy of musicians here in Cuba."

"As long as your heart beats, one is never too old."

"As far as pleasures, you've got to have limits. You shouldn't have too much of good things, so you'll always have a desire for more and you won't get bored."

"Everyone should have a philosophy for living better."

"My secret? A desire to work, years of dedication and loving what you do; I can't live without music."

"Because people are very interested in my poetry, in what I say."

"Can you imagine that Cuba and Europe's youth, who had forgotten about traditional music, who only thought of rock music, are now looking back towards their grandparents? That is a phenomenon."

"I am a scholar of life. Every night before I go to sleep, I analyze every detail of what I did that day. I evaluate things and people, which helps me avoid mistakes."

"Towns are suffering from all these things, we should unite until we are all satisfied, man cannot be killing each other as if we were animals, as if we had no culture; that is a lack of culture."

"When you here a conjunto and you hear another conjunto, you think it's like a continuation of the first. It's all the same, same, same. There's no variety, just the same music."

"I'm still strong and in the best shape to continue living my life."

"Cubans are frantic when it comes to appreciating music."

"I am still simple, just as if I were beginning."

"The roots of Cuban music are in my head."