My grandfather . . . was a commander in the Cuban army -- not just a Batista [General Fulgencio Batista y Zalduvar was Cuba's 19th president from October, 1938 until January, 1959)] -- but he was a career general there. And he had been through a few of the differenct presidents of Cuba . . . My father became a motorcycle officer. He was a good-looking guy, so he was chosen to be the first lady's [Mrs. Batista's] escort. So they were very close to the government when Batista came in power. And then immediately after [Castro seized power on January 1, 1959] [my father] joined the Bay of Pigs invasion to try to liberate Cuba . . . and he was a political prisoner for two years there [in Cuba].

I left Cuba when I was two years old. They took away my country, they stole the most intimate thing a human being can have. How could I forget that Fidel Castr…

My mother, my dad and I left Cuba when I was two [January, 1959]. Castro had taken control by then, and life for many ordinary people had become very difficult…

[Cuban coffee is] very powerful, very sweet, and a little dangerous -- just like the people who drink it.

My mother, my dad and I left Cuba when I was two [January, 1959]. Castro had taken control by then, and life for many ordinary people had become very difficult…

He [Hockney's father] hardly ever left Bradford. He was a member of CND and a socialist with a rather romantic and naive idea of what Soviet Russia was like, a…

I think a lot of what I was taught, gathered, and learned is worth keeping. Heritage and 'wisdom' and simply personal family and local history enrich the one a…