“I was able to see the lights coming from China. If maybe I could go wh...” — Park Yeon-mi Quote

“I was able to see the lights coming from China. If maybe I could go where the lights are I could find something to eat, that's why I escaped.”

“I was determined that I was going to have a successful and normal life.”

“We don't have friends in North Korea. We only have comrades. There's no concept of friends.”

“We have never escaped a certain male cultural desire for women's silence.”

“I escaped one time. In 1971 I was in the free world for six weeks.”

“Here was a fragment of Goddess myth that, through all its permutations, had somehow escaped being turned on its head. It was the perfect springboard for the sort of novel I wanted to write.”