If you want to bring an end to long-standing conflict, you have to be prepared to compromise.

I was speaking to a writer the other day and he gave me a valuable piece of advice. He said that you may get to where you want to go quicker through violence, but the healing process takes longer. Whereas if you don't use violence, there is not much healing necessary, so you win in the long run.

I do not believe that I'm sacrificing, in fact I feel very uneasy when others used the word sacrifice to describe my life. It sounds like I'm demanding returns for my investments. I chose to walk on this journey, because I solely believed in it and wholeheartedly decided to do so, and I'm willing and able to pay for the consequences.

When you think of Buddhism, you're likely to think of peace and tranquility.

I think that freedom is sometimes a state of mind. Sometimes, mind you, but not always.

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.

Unless there is free and fair competition, there can't be healthy economic development. And what we have in Burma now is not an open-market economy that allows free and fair competition, but a form of colonialism makes a few people very, very wealthy. It's what you would crony capitalism.