Sylvia

“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.”
― Yeonmi Park, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom

“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.”
― Yeonmi Park, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom

“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.”
― Yeonmi Park, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom

“I inhaled books like other people breathe oxygen. I didn't just read for knowledge or pleasure, I read to live.”
― Yeonmi Park, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom