I hope that people look at my whole career and appreciate that I've given everything that I've got.

You know, when you first come up, and you get called up to the big leagues, all you want to do is just, you just want to have a career, a nice career. You want to make a living at it.

My parents didn't agree with what was going on, you know, with the communists coming in, Fidel Castro. I didn't see the reason why I needed to go back there and be a part of that exhibition.

Well, you know, I left Cuba as a kid when I was 6 years old back in 1971.

It's hard to say when my interest in writing began, or how. My mother read to my sister and me every night, and we always loved playing make-believe games. I had a well-primed imagination. I didn't start thinking about writing as a serious pursuit, a career I could have, until after college.

The girls, like, in we'll say Hooters, have less clothing than the girls I worked with in those days. We thought it was wild when they just wore little bells and so forth. But today, in restaurants, some of the waitresses almost work in the nude, you know, to get business.

I'm never happier than when I'm not working. The strip is a job - that's why I take money for it. It's a job I'm passionate about, but it's a job I totally leave in the studio when I walk out of here, unless I'm late and I have to work at home. I never think of the strip unless I'm compelled to.

Surplus money allows some people to exercise inordinate power over others: in the workplace; in politics; and above all in the capture, use and destruction of the planet's natural wealth.