I could listen to the radio and I had access to books from time to time. Not all the time.

The main aim of the [political] dialogue should be to resolve the problems of the nation, not to find who is the winner and who is the loser. That's not what it's all about. It's to try and find an answer that is acceptable to all parties concerned, which would of course require some give and take.

A lot of the roads, bridges, railways, and such are built through the use of forced labor, and that is causing the people great suffering. What we put into this in the form of human suffering is not worth what comes out of it.

Peace as a goal is an ideal which will not be contested by any government or nation, not even the most belligerent.

When you feel helpless, help someone.

I've always said that the more coordinated the efforts of the international community are, the better it will be for democracy in Burma.

The history of the world shows that peoples and societies do not have to pass through a fixed series of stages in the course of development.