We have been making constant efforts, all the time, to start dialogue with the SLORC, but you know it takes two. We don't want a monologue. We would like a substantive political dialogue among the SLORC, political leaders including myself, and leaders of ethnic groups-exactly as stipulated in the U.N. General Assembly resolution on Burma.

It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.

There is a time to be quiet and a time to talk.

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.

What we are lacking in Burma is an independence effective judiciary, and unless we have all three of the democratic institutions - strong and healthy, we cannot say that our democratic processes (is complete).

Early childhood development has proved to be very beneficial and very cost-effective in societies where this is been tried. So let's not confine ourselves to primary education. Let's think of early childhood development and education as a whole.

To abolish fear correctly is to nurture law and order.