Quotes & Sayings About North Korea

We know North Korea has the plutonium that can go into the bomb, — Mohamed ElBaradei

Yet skirts are getting shorter, and more women can be seen in Pyongyang now with high heels. The change must be shocking to people in the more conservative countryside, where high heels continue to be associated with prostitution. — Felix Abt

Although North Korea's position differs (from Tokyo's), Japan's basic stance remains unchanged ? to seek sincere responses from the North Korean side to resolve the abduction and nuclear issues, — Junichiro Koizumi

What we have is North Korea still pursuing path to a nuclear weapon state. So the majority of people's trust in North Korea has gone down considerably. — Lee Myung-bak

Of course, China is a key to the North Korea if we're going to solve that riddle, but they could also be helpful on Iraq, which is why it's important that we maintain a constructive dialogue with China. — Frank Carlucci

What else has changes since 1984? Oil's running our, I say Earth's population is eight billion, mass extinction of flora and fauna are commonplace, climate change is foreclosing the Holocene Era. Aparteid's dead, as are the Castros in Cuba as is privacy. The USSR went bankrupt; the Eastern bloc collapsed; Germany reunified; the EU has gone federal; China's a powerhouse- though their air is industrial effluence in a gaseous state - and North Korea is still a gulag run by a coiffed cannibal. p 500 — David Mitchell

North Korea is probably the only country in the world deliberately kept out of the Internet. — Barbara Demick

It's very certain that North Korea is developing nuclear weapons for offensive purposes. They don't need nuclear weapons to defend their own country. — Kim Young-sam

I once believed man was different from other animals, but Yodok showed me that reality doesn't support this opinion. In the camp, there was no difference between man and beast, except maybe that a very hungry human was capable of stealing food from its little ones while an animal, perhaps, was not. — Kang Chol-Hwan

I'm pretty disappointed in Sony Pictures' decision to pull 'The Interview' under pressure from North Korea. — Mark Kirk

Obviously, there must be some connection between the subordination of actual individuals and the grotesque exaltation of symbolic ones like Kim Il Sung. — Christopher Hitchens

All of North Korea is a jail. — Kim Young-sam

One time an employee brought cakes to the office to celebrate her daughter's passing the exam, whereas another coincidentally fell "sick" when her child repeatedly failed the entrance exams. — Felix Abt

I would not suggest the U.S. should sit down with the North Koreans bilaterally immediately after they've fired missiles - because the appearance is that you reward bad behavior. But if North Korea behaves for some period of time, I would pretty much favor direct talks. — Richard Armitage

None. I think we should send a country some cupcakes. You think some cupcakes would cheer up North Korea? Kill 'em with deliciousness. — Gerard Way

I'm calling on the Supreme Leader of North Korea, or as I call him, 'Kim,' to do me a solid and cut Kenneth Bae loose. — Dennis Rodman

He was desperately lonely. He had a hard time connecting with new people. If South Koreans were sympathetic toward him, he found them condescending. Even though he hated the North Korean regime, he found he'd get defensive when South Koreans criticized it. This was a common predicament for defectors. — Barbara Demick

There is a different future that is available to North Korea, if they choose differently. — Mitchell Reiss

As she sat alone in the apartment, the enormity of it all started to sink in. Any hope that the North Korean regime might change with the death of Kim Il-sung was quickly dashed. The power had passed to his son. Things weren't going to get any better. She heard her father's words replaying in her ears. "The son is even worse than the father." "Now we're really fucked," she said to herself. Only then did tears of self-pity fill her eyes. — Barbara Demick

The greatest threat to the security of the people of North Korea comes from the government of North Korea. — Ari Fleischer

It had been Ari who proposed the term Kimunism for the strange form of xenophobic nationalism practiced under the Kim family dynasty; it was not really socialism, nor was it communism in even the Maoist form, despite the heaviness of its cult of personality. Ari had felt that it was the severity and chimeric plasticity of the system, so provocative, that made it appealing to French intellectuals. — David Cronenberg

We have treated our most serious adversaries, such as Iran and North Korea, in the most juvenile manner - by giving them the silent treatment. In so doing, we have weakened, not strengthened, our bargaining position and our leadership. — Theodore C. Sorensen

We can not underestimate the potential harm North Korea's capabilities can cause for the rest of the world. — Zach Wamp

Are you really questioning the wisdom of central planning? Because the happy citizens of Cuba and North Korea beg to differ. — Jonathan Gruber

If we're going to solve the problems in North Korea, the first thing we're going to have to do is start helping them get basic amenities like electricity, televisions, and DVD players over there. Otherwise, how can they watch 'Garden State'? — Zach Braff

North Korea has certainly, in the past, used detainees to initiate diplomatic exchanges with the United States. — Elise Hu

I think it's a mistake to view North Korea as a government. It really is more like a criminal syndicate. — Marco Rubio

I remember when America was strong. The situation that has arisen due to "The Interview" and North Korea's Kim Jong Un is bizarre! More bizarre is that the pressure worked - and the movie will not be released. This is a comedy - a satirical look at a serious situation. Rob Lowe was right when he said, "Hollywood has done Neville Chamberlain proud today," referring to the British prime minister who appeased Hitler. — Anonymous

North Korea remains the last bastion of undiluted communism in the world. — Barbara Demick

Fifty-seven countries in the world, a third of the United Nations, do not recognize Israel. In a way, I think North Korea has better international relations than Israel. — Abdallah II Of Jordan

In the city of Pyongyang, you don't have to look very far to see an image of the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung. They love the guy. He is responsible for the wonder that is North Korea. — Henry Rollins

Nobody knows how many North Koreans have died or are dying in the famine - some estimates by foreign-aid groups run as high as three million in the period from 1995 to 1998 alone - but the rotund, jowly face of Kim Il Sung still beams down contentedly from every wall, and the 58-year-old son looks as chubby as ever, even as his slenderized subjects are mustered to applaud him. — Christopher Hitchens

Proliferation of nuclear weapons to terrorist organisations is far more dangerous than proliferation of nuclear weapons to states, even states like North Korea. — John Bruton

The North Korean regime remains one of the world's leading proliferator of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action. — George W. Bush

But now she couldn't deny what was staring her plainly in the face: dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea. — Barbara Demick

It is natural for us to pay attention to North Korea and human rights issues of North Korean defectors but I wish people would not try to create stars. The reality is different from Hollywood movies. — Hark-Joon Lee

Now, an important word from our Minister of Defense: Certainly the loudspeaker in each and every apartment in North Korea provides news, announcements, and cultural programming, but it must be reminded that it was by Great Leader Kim Il Sung's decree in 1973 that an anti-raid warning system be installed across this nation, and a properly functioning early-warning network is of supreme importance. The Inuit people are a tribe of isolate savages that live near the North Pole. Their boots are called mukluk. Ask your neighbor later today, what is a mukluk? If he does not know, perhaps there is a malfunction with his loudspeaker, or perhaps it has for some reason become accidentally disconnected. By reporting this, you could be saving his life the next time the Americans sneak-attack our great nation. — Adam Johnson

Among the millions of North Koreans who took part in the mass display of grief for Kim Il-sung, how many were faking? Were they crying for the death of the Great Leader or for themselves? Or were they crying because everybody else was? If there is one lesson taught by scholars of mass behavior, from the historians of the Salem witch hunts to Charles Mackay, author of the classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, hysteria is infectious. In the middle of a crowd of crying people, the only natural human reaction is to cry oneself. — Barbara Demick

North Korea is not an insane nation. It is not a crazy nation. — Richard Armitage

With regard to North Korea, between myself and President Obama earlier, with regard to the so-called launch of satellite, the missile launch, we shared the view that it undermines the efforts of the various countries concerned to achieve the resolution through dialogue. — Yoshihiko Noda

Our rival interrogation team is the Pubyok, named after the "floating wall" defenders that saved Pyongyang from invaders in 1136. There are only a dozen or so left, old men with silver crewcuts who walk in a row like a wall and truly believe they can float, stealthy as ghosts, from one citizen to the next, interrogating them as the wind interrogates the leaves. — Adam Johnson

When outsiders stare into the void that is today's North Korea, they think of remote villages of Africa or Southeast Asia where the civilizing hand of electricity has not yet reached. But North Korea is not an undeveloped country; it is a country that has fallen out of the developed world. You can see the evidence of what once was and what has been lost dangling overhead alongside any major North Korean road - the skeletal wires of the rusted electrical grid that once covered the entire country. — Barbara Demick

If Mitt Romney can be pushed around, intimidated, coerced, co-opted by a conservative radio talk show host in Middle America, then how is he going to stand up to the Chinese? How is he going to stand up to Putin? How is he going to stand up to North Korea if he can be pushed around by a yokel like me? I don't think Romney is realizing the doubts that this begins to raise about his leadership. — Bryan Fischer

Our goal there, in my view, is to work and lean strongly on China to put as much pressure. China is one of the few major countries in the world that has significant support for North Korea, and I think we got to do everything we can to put pressure on China. I worry very much about an isolated, paranoid country with atomic bombs. — Bernie Sanders

I know that some of those plans [of the North Korea] could very well lead to a missile that might reach Hawaii, if not the West Coast. We do have to try to get the countries in the region to work with us to do everything we can to confine, and constrain them. — Hillary Clinton

To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. Clinton didn't do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress. — Noam Chomsky

A local phrase book, entitled Speak in Korean, has the following handy expressions. In the section 'On the Way to the Hotel': 'Let's Mutilate US Imperialism!' In the section 'Word Order': 'Yankees are wolves in human shape - Yankees / in human shape / wolves / are.' In the section 'Farewell Talk': 'The US Imperialists are the sworn enemy of the Korean people.' Not that the book is all like this - the section 'At the Hospital' has the term solsaga ('I have loose bowels'), and the section 'Our Foreign Friends Say' contains the Korean for 'President Kim Il Sung is the sun of mankind.'
I wanted a spare copy of this phrase book to give to a friend, but found it was hard to come by. Perhaps this was a sign of a new rapprochement with the United States, or perhaps it was because, on page 46, in the section on the seasons, appear the words: haemada pungnyoni dumnida ('We have a bumper harvest every year'). — Christopher Hitchens

In a Pyongyang restaurant, don't ever ask for a doggie bag. — Christopher Hitchens

Inside, I'm assaulted by the evening propaganda broadcasts coming over the apartment's hardwired loudspeaker. There's one in every apartment and factory floor in Pyongyang — Adam Johnson

North Korean students and intellectuals didn't dare to stage protests as their counterparts in other Communist countries did. There was no Prague Spring or Tiananmen Square. The level of repression in North Korea was so great that no organized resistance could take root. — Barbara Demick

Because there are little to no consequences for conducting cyberattacks, criminals and nation-states are becoming bolder in their threats and behavior. Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are increasingly hacking into U.S. companies and government networks for espionage purposes or financial gain. — Michael McCaul

Clearly North Korea is a very strange situation because it is such an isolated country run by a handful of dictators, or maybe just one, who seems to be somewhat paranoid. And, who had nuclear weapons. — Bernie Sanders

North Korea is not an undeveloped country; it is a country that has fallen out of the developed world. — Barbara Demick

We recognize that North Korea is in severe financial straits, and they have decided to use their resources to build their military, rather than to feed their people and to take care of the various humanitarian responsibilities that they have. — Benjamin Carson

If they think they can get anyone who could have better handled the complex and difficult issues surrounding North Korea, Iran and other controversies, they are not understanding the world right now. — Mohamed ElBaradei

Iranians are very proud and don't want to become a pariah state like North Korea. — Edward Luck

I worry very, very much about an isolated country. That's what makes me nervous. Russia lives in the world. China lives in the world. North Korea is a very, very strange country because it is so isolated, and I do feel that a nation with nuclear weapons, they have got to be dealt with. Dealt with effectively. — Bernie Sanders

It was not known precisely how many labor camps there were in North Korea, although the international consensus was six. The fact that they were numbered and those numbers reached at least as high as twenty-two was an indicator of their pervasiveness. At least two hundred thousand North Koreans, or nearly one percent of the entire population, called these labor camps home. — David Baldacci

For the 1,300 years prior to the Japanese occupation, Korea had been a unified country governed by the Chosun dynasty, one of the longest-lived monarchies in world history — Barbara Demick

If North Korea doesn't have a deterrent, they will be wiped out. — Noam Chomsky

In any case, it is better to have some deal than no deal, but it's interesting that Obama picked the day of implementing of Iran deal to impose new sanctions on North Korea. — Noam Chomsky

My father came by himself across the North Korean border when he was seventeen. And hasn't seen his brothers or sisters or parents since then. And he died some time ago, but never saw any of his relatives. My mother was a refugee in war-torn Korea. — Jim Yong Kim

This was always the case with North Korea. It was like the bad boyfriend whose presence could never be depended on, so you always had to seize the opportunity to spend time with him when he made himself available. — Suki Kim

And also, we are providing, you know, a nuclear power plant in the north, two light water systems, so some 4 or 5 billion dollars we are providing to meet with North Korean requests on the condition North Korea will not produce a nuclear weapon. — Kim Dae-jung

The death of dictator Kim Jong-Il has cast all eyes on North Korea, a country without literature or freedom or truth. — Adam Johnson

The $52.6 billion U.S. intelligence arsenal is aimed mainly at unambiguous adversaries, including al-Qaida, North Korea and Iran. But top-secret budget documents reveal an equally intense focus on one purported ally: Pakistan. — Barton Gellman

Real stories like this, human ones, could get you sent to prison, and it didn't matter what they were about. It didn't matter if the story was about an old woman or a squid attack - if it diverted emotion from the Dear Leader, it was dangerous. — Adam Johnson

This is not the sort of thing that shows up in satellite photographs. Whether in CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, or in the East Asian studies department of a university, people usually analyze North Korea from afar. They don't stop to think that in the middle of this black hole, in this bleak, dark country where millions have died of starvation, there is also love. — Barbara Demick

To my amusement, a traffic sign prohibited ox carts from passing by revolutionary sites, out of fear that the oxen would defecate close to these venerated monuments. These strong, resilient, and patient animals weren't merely shuffling goods along roads, but because of the limited mechanization and shortage of fuel they also plowed rice paddy fields. I got the impression that, unlike in China and Vietnam where every year is the year of a different animal, in North Korea every year was the Year of the Oxen. — Felix Abt

I would like to get out to the region in the Caspian sea. I would like to go there. I would like to get to Darfur. I would like to get to Khartoum in Northern Sudan. I would like to get to Zimbabwe. I would like to go back to North Korea, if I could. I would like to go to Yemen. I would like to get to Kashmir. Most of those destinations I will get to. — Henry Rollins

In North Korea, you don't own your own home; you are merely awarded the right to live there. — Barbara Demick

North Korea has the same ability to launch a nuclear strike against America as I do. It's like walking through a parking lot and getting barked at by a chihuahua locked in a car. — Bill Maher

What these critics forget is that printing presses in themselves provide no guarantee of an enlightened outcome. People, not machines, made the Renaissance. The printing that takes place in North Korea today, for instance, is nothing more than propaganda for a personality cult. What is important about printing presses is not the mechanism, but the authors. — Jaron Lanier

When does a wife know that her husband is cheating on her? When he starts complaining about the lack of water as he wants to have two showers a week." This was one of the many popular jokes. — Felix Abt

The hope of Internet anarchists was that repressive governments would have only two options: accept the Internet with its limitless possibilities of spreading information, or restrict Internet access to the ruling elite and turn your back on the 21st century, as North Korea has done. — Peter Singer

The one consistent policy running through this [Clinton] administration is the love it has lavished on Marxists
food aid for North Korea, diplomatic recognition of the Hanoi regime, chronic kowtowing to Beijing and now doing Castro's dirty work. How can the Clinton gang
which carried the Viet Cong flag during anti-war demonstrations and decorated their dorm rooms with pictures of Che Guevara
not feel contempt for people who insist, with every fiber of their being, that communism is mankind's mortal enemy? — Don Feder

Part of my heritage being Korean, it's going to be interesting going to Korea and answering these questions dealing with North and South Korea. — Rick Yune

The cadence of life is slower in North Korea. — Barbara Demick

In contrast, Western historians, and those in South Korea, say the North attacked the South on June 25, 1950. Both sides agree that after the war began, the North Korean Army captured Seoul in three days and pushed as far south as Pusan before American troops arrived to drive back the North Koreans nearly as far north as the border to China. — Sheryl WuDunn

States like (Iraq, Iran, & North Korea), and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. — George W. Bush

One of the ways the North Korea regime has kept power is by keeping its people ignorant of the living standards in the outside world. That's the underlying lie that supports the regime - not that their country is 'normal' but that they are better off. — Barbara Demick

The Korean War, which China entered on the side of North Korea, fixed Mao's image in the United States as another unappeasable Communist. — Pankaj Mishra

You know, North Korea situation is far worse than East Germany, and South Korea is weaker than West Germany. — Kim Dae-jung

I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties. I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning. — Ann Coulter

History is full of examples of regimes that were oppressing at home and aggressive abroad, and I can't think of too many liberal democracies engaging in counterfeiting, drug running, missile proliferation, and just about any other illegal activity you can think of as North Korea does. — Ed Royce

Satellite images suggest North Korea is building a light-water reactor and working on uranium enrichment. This is troubling. — Yukiya Amano

In 1984, George Orwell wrote of a world where the only colour to be found was in the propaganda posters. Such is the case in North Korea. Images of Kim Il-sung are depicted in vivid colours. Rays of yellow and orange emanate from his face: he is the sun. — Barbara Demick

To survive, China had to open up to the West. It could not survive otherwise. This was after many millions have died of hunger in a country that was like North Korea is today. Once we became part of global competition, we had to agree to some rules. It's painful, but we had to. Otherwise there was no way to survive. — Ai Weiwei

The crises in North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, show how quickly things can change and how they can go wrong. We must be prepared. And right now the Army is not. — Ike Skelton

There's the assumption being made by the national security advisers to the Obama administration that the North Korean leadership is not suicidal, that they know they will be obliterated if they attacked the United States. But I would point that everything in South Korea and Japan is well within range of what they might want to do. — Oliver North

The state was founded, actually, I think the year that Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. And it's as if they sort of took the book and thought, I wonder if we could make this work? — Christopher Hitchens

Various channels of dialogue must be kept open to build trust. I will meet North Korea's leader if it is needed to develop relations between the two Koreas. — Park Geun-hye

The school year started in September, with a long vacation in the winter, not the summer, due to the difficulty of keeping the schools warm in North Korea's harsh winters. My kindergarten had a large wood-burning stove in the middle of the classroom and walls painted with colourful scenes of children performing gymnastics, children in uniform, and of a North Korean soldier simultaneously impaling a Yankee, a Japanese and a South Korean soldier with his rifle bayonet. — Hyeonseo Lee

At the beginning of this year also, I called upon the North Korean side to open dialog between the responsible authorities of the South and the North at any place, at any time, and at any level, in order to prevent a recurrence of war and to cooperate to speed up the peaceful unification of our fatherland. However, no sincere response has yet been made by North Korea. — Jimmy Carter

North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. — George W. Bush

If Iran and North Korea, by some horrible, devilish, nightmarish scenario, got together and went to war at the same time, one against Saudi Arabia and one against South Korea, I don't know what we would do about that. I don't know that we could stop them short of using nuclear weapons. — Ben Stein

The United Nations passed so-called sanctions again on North Korea, and they've said they 'will exercise their preemptive right to a nuclear attack.' I don't think this ought to be taken kindly. — Oliver North

We've seen a massive attack on the freedom of the web. Governments are realizing the power of this medium to organize people and they are trying to clamp down across the world, not just in places like China and North Korea; we're seeing bills in the United States, in Italy, all across the world. — Sergey Brin

Capitalism has worked very well. Anyone who wants to move to North Korea is welcome. — Bill Gates

By threatening war against Iran, Iraq and North Korea in his now-famous "Axis of Evil" address, the president painted himself into a corner. Either Bush now goes to war against one of these regimes, or he will be humiliated and exposed as a bellicose bluff. — Pat Buchanan