Defector Quotes

“Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe. I will never truly be free of its gravity, no matter how far I journey.”
― Hyeonseo Lee

“This is when I understood that we can do without almost anything – our home, even our country. But we will never do without other people, and we will never do without family.”
― Hyeonseo Lee, The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector's Story

“People say mountains change in about ten years. If something as stubborn and mammoth as a mountain can change in a decade, the hearts of ordinary North Koreans can change. I'm sure of it. I'm living proof." --Ha Young, a North Korean defector”
― Jieun Baek, North Korea's Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society

“People say mountains change in about ten years. If something as stubborn and mammoth as a mountain can change in a decade, the hearts of ordinary North Koreans can change. I'm sure of it. I'm living proof." --Ha Young, a North Korean defector interviewed in Jieun Baek's book "North Korea's Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground is Transforming a Closed Society”
― Jieun Baek, North Korea's Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society

“Jeff was a bit surprised. Peter, named for the character in the Russian children’s story ‘Peter and the Wolf’, was Fortner’s most reliable Human Intelligence (HUMINT) asset in the Soviet Union. Fortner had recruited him on one of his early forays behind the iron curtain. He had helped to fake the deaths of Peter’s wife and children and then smuggled them to freedom.”
― C.G. Faulkner, White Room: A Cold War Thriller