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81 " I walk down these streets, and I look out to the sea, and I want to feel as though I belong here, but I’m a visitor here, a guest in my own country.” Luis takes my hand. “Then you know what it means to be Cuban,” he says. “We always reach for something beyond our grasp. "
― Chanel Cleeton , Next Year in Havana
82 " But then again, what is certain in this world? Governments change, regimes fall, alliances shift. With so much that lies out of our hands, it seems like love is the easiest and only thing worth trusting. "
83 " Havana is like a woman who was grand once and has fallen on hard times, and yet hints of her former brilliance remain, traces of an era since passed, a photograph faded by time and circumstance, its edges crumbling to dust. If I close my eyes I can see Havana as she was, enshrined in my grandmother’s memory. "
84 " I’m forever caught between two languages. I learned Spanish before anything else, grew up speaking both languages at home and at school. In my most vulnerable moments, the ones when I feel things most deeply, when I hope, when I fear, when I love, it’s the Spanish that comes to me first. "
85 " It is a strange time to be Cuban, to feel the stirrings beneath your feet, hear the rumblings in the sky, and to continue on as though nothing is happening at all. "
86 " You speak as though politics is its own separate entity. As though it isn't in the air around us, as though every single part of us isn't politics. How can you dismiss something that is so fundamental to the integrity of who we are as a people, as a country? How can you dismiss something that directly affects the lives of so many? "
87 " There is an art to this, you see. An art to appearing as though everything is effortless, that your world is a gilded one, when the reality is that your knees beneath your silk gown buckle from the weight of it all. We are silk and lace, and beneath them we are steel. "
88 " I was caught between two lands—two iterations of myself—the one I inhabited in my body and the one I lived in my dreams. "
89 " Life is too short to be unhappy, Marisol. To play it safe. To do what is expected of you rather than follow your heart. "
90 " If things don’t look the way you anticipated, you change your expectations. It’s an easy way to avoid being disappointed. "
91 " Even in a country where everyone is supposed to be equal, there are clear disparities between those who have little and those who have less. "
92 " The irony of the revolution is that it sought to eradicate capitalism, entrepreneurship, but the revolution’s greatest legacy has been the rise of a new breed of Cuban entrepreneurs. The black market thrives.” “So where does Orwell in Cuba fit "
93 " Never forget where you come from. You come from a long line of survivors. Trust in that when things get hard. And in each other. "
94 " Our love is tangled up in our expectations, our perception of reality. And you never know what people really think. They often keep their deepest emotions locked away. "
95 " could, I fought for what I believed in. But I’m an old man now. The older you get, the more you realize that change—meaningful, lasting change—doesn’t always come with violence and bloodshed, but with reform, however slow, however gradual. "
96 " Batista was a harsh president. He loved sugar, loved the money that flowed into the country from overseas, but he didn’t love the Cuban people. He wanted to be king over a people who didn’t want to be ruled. "
97 " How do you gain any power in a world where a few control all of it if you aren’t willing to wrest that power from them? "
98 " artifice. "
99 " Have faith, Marisol. You could be good for each other. It might seem impossible now, but trust me, you never know what the future can bring. "
100 " History professor. Musician. Waiter. The legacy of the Cuban revolution - donning many hats to stay afloat.For some, the love we cannot have is the most powerful one of all. "