“Fear is a habit; I am not afraid.”

If you’re feeling helpless, help someone.

Please use your freedom to promote ours.

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 is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear.

The courage that dares without recognition, without the protection of media attention, is a courage that humbles and inspires and reaffirms our faith in humanity.

The important thing is fear should not control your actions. It should not dictate what you do.

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

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.

If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith.

My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace – it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world.

Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

There is a time to be quiet and a time to talk.

Challenges mean opportunities as well.

The people of my country want the two freedoms that spell security: freedom from want and freedom from fear.

So peace does not mean just putting an end to violence or to war, but to all other factors that threaten peace, such as discrimination, such as inequality, poverty.

If you can make people understand why freedom is so important through the arts, that would be a big help.

I don’t strive for balance.

They’re not very good ideas, but at least they’re ideas!

They were not happy. For the sake of the film, they had to streamline everything.

I’m no Leonardo DiCaprio.

A good boy, and I’m very proud of him. Not easy to understand, no sir. He’s not easy to understand. But he’s all man, and he’ll make his mark.

My business is to enjoy and have fun. And why not, if in the end everything will end, right?

Between men and women, between blacks and whites, northerners and southerners, haves and have-have-nots, self and self.

When I find the character, I try to spend time with them and get to know them very well. Therefore my notes are not from the character that I had in my mind before, but are instead based on the people I’ve met in real life.