At the moment I would like to emphasize the need for vocational training, for non-formal education in Burma to help all those young people who have suffered from a bad education. They have to be trained to earn their living. They have to have enough education vocational training to be able to set up respectable lives for themselves.

It is often in the name of cultural integrity as well as social stability and national security that democratic reforms based on human rights are resisted by authoritarian governments.

If you can make people understand why freedom is so important through the arts, that would be a big help.

I've never thought of myself as being particularly brave - I used to be frightened of the dark when I was small. And I'm not very good with dead rats and things like that. But I face what has to be faced and I hope as best as I'm able.

It is not enough to sit and hope. You have to work in order to realize your hopes.

I've always said that the most important thing is job creation. Jobs will earn people money and build self-confidence.

In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth women are not merely "tolerated", they are valued.