The people of my country want the two freedoms that spell security: freedom from want and freedom from fear.

I think sometimes if you are alone, you are freer because your time is your own.

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.

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.

Fearlessness may be a gift, but perhaps most precious is courage from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions.

More people, especially young people, are realising that if they want change, they've got to go about it themselves – they can't depend on a particular person, ie me, to do all the work. They are less easy to fool than they used to be, they now know what's going on all over the world.

When I was in London a Kachin youth criticized me for not condemning the Burmese military for their offensive in Kachin State. I answered "condemnation is not the solution." We want to build reconciliation, not condemnation.