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In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
Yeonmi Park
Top 10 Best Quotes
“I inhaled books like other people breathe oxygen. I didn't just read for knowledge or pleasure, I read to live.”
“We all have our own deserts. They may not be the same as my desert, but we all have to cross them to find a purpose in life and be free.”
“It amazed me how quickly a lie loses its power in the face of truth.”
“when you have more words to describe the world, you increase your ability to think complex thoughts.”
“I was beginning to realize that all the food in the world, and all the running shoes, could not make me happy. The material things were worthless. I had lost my family. I wasn’t loved, I wasn’t free, and I wasn’t safe. I was alive, but everything that made life worth living was gone.”
“In the free world, children dream about what they want to be when they grow up and how they can use their talents. When I was four and five years old, my only adult ambition was to buy as much bread as I liked and eat all of it.”
“A second chance? I thought. A second chance is what criminals get. I knew I wasn’t a criminal; I did what I had to do to survive and save my family.”
“There were so many desperate people on the streets crying for help that you had to shut off your heart or the pain would be too much. After a while you don't care anymore. And that is what hell is like.”
“But when I was seven or eight years old, the film that changed my life was Titanic. It amazed me that it was a story that took place a hundred years ago. Those people living in 1912 had better technology than most North Koreans! But mostly I couldn’t believe how someone could make a movie out of such a shameful love story. In North Korea, the filmmakers would have been executed. No real human stories were allowed, nothing but propaganda about the Leader. But in Titanic, the characters talked about love and humanity. I was amazed that Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were willing to die for love, not just for the regime, as we were. The idea that people could choose their own destinies fascinated me. This pirated Hollywood movie gave me my first small taste of freedom.”
“Along my journey I have seen the horrors that humans can inflict on one another, but I've also witnessed acts of tenderness and kindness and sacrifice in the worst imaginable circumstances. I know that it is possible to lose part of your humanity in order to survive. But I also know that the spark of human dignity is never completely extinguished, and that given the oxygen of freedom and the power of love, it can grow again.”
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Book Keywords:
power, kindness, survival, lies, love, truth, inspirational, freedom