Hyeonseo Lee Quotes

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

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

I hope you remember that if you encounter an obstacle on the road, don’t think of it as an obstacle at all… think of it as a challenge to find a new path on the road less traveled.

~ Hyeonseo Lee

In her world, the law was upside down. People had to break the law to live. The prohibition on drug-dealing, a serious crime in most countries, is not viewed in the same way – as protective of society – by North Koreans. It is viewed as a risk, like unauthorized parking. If you can get away with it, where’s the harm?

~ Hyeonseo Lee

I wanted to belong, like everyone else around me did, but there was no country I could say was mine. I had no one to tell me that many other people in the world have a fragmented identity; that it doesn’t matter. That who we are as a person is what’s important.

~ Hyeonseo Lee

My closest friend at this time was my tiny pet dog - it was one of the cute little breeds that people in other countries put frocks on. I wouldn't have been allowed to do that, because putting clothes on dogs was a well-known example of capitalist degeneracy.

~ Hyeonseo Lee

He’d valued his dignity more than his own life.

~ Hyeonseo Lee