Courage is when you dare to be yourself, in whatever ways you want to be - to not be afraid, to just do it.
Loung UngWhen I approach a more mature age, I am not going to live in America. Visiting my grandmother, when she was 94, which is a very long life in Cambodia, I saw how important it was that she was in a community with my sisters, brothers and all grandchildren were so involved in her life. I liked that experience so much more than visiting my sister-in-law's grandparents in a nursing home. It's about looking at a community through your window versus being part of a community that's alive, that is youthful and old and hungry and smelly and loud, where everything is vibrant and colorful.
Loung UngChoosing happiness is a scary thing. Choosing love is a scary thing. When I was in the war, not only did I not have a voice, but I had to make myself not be heard, not be seen, become dumb, mute, blind, invisible, just so I could survive. When you fall in love, you become alive, all of a sudden you are singing. For me, there was a fear that the person I love would one day leave me, whether by their own choice or that they would die. How was I going to survive that? Choosing love and happiness is to know life goes on. I had to believe that.
Loung UngFrom 1975 to 1979 - through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor - the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country's population.
Loung Ung