I don't think you can work on feelings in politics, apart from anything else, political change can come very unexpectedly, sometimes overnight when you least expect it.

It's very difficult to have any faith in the sincerity of the SLORC about stamping out drug production if they find it so easy to forgive a drug baron whom at one time they said they would never, never forgive and would never, never regard as anything but a drug runner. The SLORC is far more aggressive in its attitude toward the National League for Democracy than against drug traffickers.

Lasting solutions are always difficult to come to. But they will have to persevere. I've been repeating ad nauseam that we in Burma we are weak with regard to the culture of negotiated compromises, that we have to develop the ability to achieve such compromises.

The judiciary in Burma is not independent. It's widely known, everybody knows that.

We're nowhere near democracy. I've been released, that's all.

I look upon myself as a politician. That isn't a dirty word.

I only used a cell phone for the first time after I was released. I had difficulty coping with it because it seemed so small and insubstantial.