Quotes from Park Yeon-mi

Risking your life is not an easy thing to do.

My detective just told me, 'Seriously, you are in danger and you have to change all your information.' But I said no because my name, Park Yeon-mi, is my legacy from my father, that's the only one he just left me. I'm very proud of my name so that's why if I die I'm ok.

I have visited slums in Mumbai, I have visited slums in other countries, but nothing is like North Korea because North Korean starvation, it's a systematic starvation by a country that chose to starve us.

I think my father would have become a millionaire if he had grown up in South Korea or the United States... Almost anywhere else, business would have been my father's vocation. But in North Korea, it was simply a means to survive.

I didn't know who Bob Geldof or Richard Branson were and I thought Dublin was part of England.

North Korea cannot change because its people don't realize that there is an alternative to their suffering.

Back in 2014, at the One Young World Summit in Dublin, I shared my story of my escape from North Korea to China in 2007. I had no idea what was coming or what to expect.

When I was invited to return to the 2015 One Young World summit in Bangkok, I knew that I had to make it back. One Young World had given me a platform, and for me it was vitally important for new delegates to hear about North Korea.

Kim Il Sung prepared Kim Jong Il for decades to be his successor and made it very clear from the beginning, 'This is my son and he's going to lead the country' and that took more than 10 years - almost 20 years.

North Korea spends billions of dollars to make this nuke test system. If they would spend just 20 percent of what they spent on making nuclear weapons, nobody would have to die in North Korea from hunger but the regime chose to make us hungry.

Freedom meant for me to wear earrings, not freedom of speech.

North Korea is an unimaginable country. We aren't free to sing, say, wear or think what we want.

In North Korea I thought a frozen potato was the fanciest food in the world.

That is what is happening in America. People see things, but still they've just completely lost the ability to think critically.

I just never learned to think critically.

Reading 'Animal Farm' set me free from the dictatorship in my head. I could see all the tactics used by the regime to control us - they were all in that book.

I crossed the Gobi desert to be free and now I thought I live in a country where I can say what I believe and have my freedom to think. However, now I have to constantly censor my speech because in the name off a 'safe place.'

I didn't know people can be good. I didn't know people are designed to be good and help one another.

I really had loving parents, and my father was the example of perseverance... he never gave up, and he taught me it's so easy to give up, but to fight is harder.

North Korea was pretty insane. Like the first thing my mom taught me was don't even whisper, the birds and mice could hear me. She told me the most dangerous thing that I had in my body was my tongue.

I surrendered all my privacy to write this book. It was so hard and so painful. I went through so much crazy stuff. But I wanted people to realize that North Koreans are just like them.

I wasn't dreaming of freedom when I escaped from North Korea... I was willing to risk my life for the promise of a bowl of rice.

I had to look for food all the time. I had to catch dragonflies, grasshoppers, and that was the only source of protein for me.

I don't think I will ever understand what freedom means, but I am enjoying learning.