Humor is one of the best ingredients of survival.

The greatest gift for an individual or a nation... was abhaya, fearlessness, not merely bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind.

I don't think any country can survive as a prosperous and dignified country unless there is rule of law.

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.

It's good to know that the people of different countries are really concerned and involved in the movement to help Burma. I think in some ways it's better to have the people of the world on your side than the governments of the world, even if governments can be more effective in certain directions.

We want to empower our people; we want to strengthen them; we want to provide them with the kind of qualifications that will enable them to build up their own country themselves.

In Burma, we need to find out what we have to do in order to keep the democratization process on track. Economic reforms have to be taken one by one. You see it's not just speed that's important, it's sequencing as well. You've got to get the speed right; you have to get the sequencing right.