Pyongyang Quotes & Sayings

North Korea has declared its own time zone that they are calling 'Pyongyang Time,' and set their clocks back half an hour. So if it's say, 11:40 here now in New York, in North Korea it's still 1925. — Jimmy Fallon

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

North Korea is a famine state. In the fields, you can see people picking up loose grains of rice and kernels of corn, gleaning every scrap. They look pinched and exhausted. In the few, dingy restaurants in the city, and even in the few modern hotels, you can read the Pyongyang Times through the soup, or the tea, or the coffee. Morsels of inexplicable fat or gristle are served as 'duck.' One evening I gave in and tried a bowl of dog stew, which at least tasted hearty and spicy - they wouldn't tell me the breed - but then found my appetite crucially diminished by the realization that I hadn't seen a domestic animal, not even the merest cat, in the whole time I was there. — Christopher Hitchens

The green spaces in Pyongyang were immense and many in number, but not as immense as the monuments. — David Baldacci

The scariest thing in my life is the first morning of production on all my movies. It's the fear of failing, the loss of face, and a sense of guilt that everybody puts their faith in you and not coming through. — Tony Scott

One of the benefits the authors point out of discussing logical consequences with children rather than handing out arbitrary punishments is that the practice gives THEM the language to discuss One of the benefits the authors point out of discussing logical consequences with children rather than handing out arbitrary punishments is that the practice gives THEM the language to discuss seting boundaries and making decisions, even in conflicts with their friends. — Adele Faber

We all know people who say: "It's the principle of the matter" to justify sustaining toxic emotions for years. As they hold onto their anger or hurt, they bleed away their energy reserves, often ending up bitter and depressed. — Doc Childre

Because Pyongyang is the only North Korean city frequented by foreigners, the regime goes to great lengths to ensure that its inhabitants make a good impression with their appearance and are ideologically sound. — Barbara Demick

We become accomplices in evil every time we seek to soothe the unslakable appetites of the crime family that sits in Pyongyang. — Christopher Hitchens

The accession to power in Pyongyang of Kim Jong Un, son of Kim Jong Il and grandson of Kim Il Sung, is a unique achievement in world politics. — Elliott Abrams

...travel permits to Pyongyang were notoriously hard to get. In order to keep Pyongyang as a showcase city, the North Korean government restricted visitors. — Barbara Demick

I'm aware, as a sane person, that I'm not the best-looking guy in the world. I'm aware of it. But when I go into a party, I will walk out with your girlfriend. — Gene Simmons

Mark held up his plastic bag. Inside it, a small orange fish swam around in a circle. "This is the best patrol we've ever done," he said. "I have never been awarded a fish before. — Cassandra Clare

The reader feels as if he is in Chongjin, where starving people ate the bark off trees; or atop Mount Taesong with the elite of Pyongyang, whose existence is a mix of sadism and whimsy; or with the masses who are bombarded day and night with the propaganda of North Korea's alternate reality. — Adam Johnson

At least initially, the relationship took on a nineteenth-century epistolatory quality. The only way they could stay in touch was by letter. In 1991, while South Korea was becoming the world's largest exporter of mobile telephones, few North Koreans had ever used a telephone. You had to go to a post office to make a phone call. But even writing a letter was not a simple undertaking. Writing paper was scarce. People would write in the margins of newspapers. The paper in the state stores was made of corn husk and would crumble easily if you scratched too hard. Mi-ran had to beg her mother for the money to buy a few sheets of imported paper. Rough drafts were out of the question; paper was too precious. The distance from Pyongyang to Chongjin was only 250 miles, but letters took up to a month to be delivered. — Barbara Demick

There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you. — Peter De Vries

Even in parts of the showcase capital of Pyongyang, you can stroll down the middle of a main street at night without being able to see the buildings on either side. — Barbara Demick

I guess it could be worse. My name could be Tlaquepaque, or Irkutsk, or Pyongyang. Or, you know, Pittsburgh. Sometimes I flip through the atlas just to remind myself of all the names that would be worse than mine. — Tamara Summers

No one gets ahead by striving for mediocrity. — Glenn C. Stewart

There is some sign that North Korea is changing recently. There is ongoing successful negotiation to have a military talk to Pyongyang, which has been stopped for seven years. — Kim Dae-jung

The passing of Marxism-Leninism first from China and then from the Soviet Union will mean its death as a living ideology ... For while there may be some isolated true believers left in places like Managua, Pyongyang, or Cambridge, MA ... — Francis Fukuyama

The convergence of desire is even more obvious at the top: all oligarchs have the same taste in Cristal, from Petersburg to Pyongyang. — Peter Thiel

The closer the source of light is to a subject, the broader the beams are. — Conrad Hall

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

I have been around long enough to discount most superstitions for what they are: I was around when many of them began to take root, after all. But one superstition to which I happen to subscribe is that bad juju comes in threes. The saying in my time was, "Storm clouds are thrice cursed," but I can't talk like that and expect people to believe I'm a twenty-one year-old American. I have to say things like, "Shit happens, man. — Kevin Hearne

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

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

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

If it was difficult for a visitor to find anything to eat impromptu in Moscow, Havana, Tirana, Bucharest, or Pyongyang, it took little effort to understand the connection of this difficulty with the vulgar anti-commercialism of Saint Karl and Saint Vladimir. Indeed, it would have taken all the ingenuity of the cleverest academics not to have understood it. — Theodore Dalrymple