Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite

by Suki Kim

Everything has been so hushed for decades that if you press your ear to the stillness, you can almost hear the muted cries.

Sometimes the longer you are inside a prison, the harder it is to fathom what is possible beyond its walls.

tradition is not well suited for globalization.

For immigrants, regret can become a way of life.

the words best and greatest were used so frequently that they gradually lost their meaning.

Awakening was a luxury available only to those in the free world.

The entire country was like a linguistic and cultural Galápagos.

For the first time in my life, thinking was dangerous to my survival.

I chose to sit with the students whose English was the poorest so that they would be less likely to lie to me.

the DPRK purposely infantilized its citizens, making everyone helpless and powerless so that they depended on the state.