“Dr. Kim couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a bowl of pure white rice. What was a bowl of rice doing there, just sitting out on the ground? She figured it out just before she heard the dog's...”

“North Korean defectors often find it hard to settle down. It is not easy for somebody whos escaped a totalitarian country to live in the free world. Defectors have to rediscover who they are in a w...”

“Tech-savvy types had figured out how to get around the system. With radios it was easyopen up the set, cut the conveyor belt attached to the dial, and replace it with a rubber band that could turn ...”

“Her younger son, twenty, was assigned to a factory that made railroad equipment, but since it provided no salary he was actually paying his workplace three dollars per month so he could stay home t...”

“North Korea remains the last bastion of undiluted communism in the world.”

“Up until that moment, a part of her had hoped that China would be just as poor as North Korea. She still wanted to believe that her country was the best place in the world. The beliefs she had cher...”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“In fact, they live in a state of constant paradox where truth is anything but constant”

“People don't like to wait for words, they want the words to wait for them.”

“Ive learned that waiting is the most difficult bit, and I want to get used to the feeling, knowing that youre with me, even when youre not by my side.”

“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”