Barbara Demick

There was the natural human survival instinct to be optimistic.

— Barbara Demick

“He was polite, respectful, not daring even to hold Mi-ran’s hand until they’d been dating for three years.”

— Barbara Demick

“The more there was to complain about, the more important it was to ensure that nobody did.”

— Barbara Demick

“While the Chinese Red Guard also rooted out “capitalist roaders” during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, it resulted in…

— Barbara Demick

“As she sat alone in the apartment, the enormity of it all started to sink in. Any hope that the North Korean…

— Barbara Demick

A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off…

— Barbara Demick

“Chang-bo took to his bed, or rather to the quilts on the floor that was all they had left. His legs swelled…

— Barbara Demick

“It is axiomatic that one death is a tragedy, a thousand is a statistic.”

— Barbara Demick

One death is a tragedy; a thousand is a statistic.

— Barbara Demick

The night sky in North Korea might be the most brilliant in northeast Asia, the only airspace spared the coal dust, Gobi…

— Barbara Demick

“The right to “universal free medical service … to improve working people’s health” was in fact written into the North Korean constitution.”

— Barbara Demick

“Chinese Red Guard also rooted out “capitalist roaders” during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, it resulted in a chaotic…

— Barbara Demick

“A coal miner from Chongjin whom I met in 2004 in China told me, "People are not stupid. Everybody thinks our own…

— Barbara Demick

“As Mrs. Song would observe a decade later, when she thought back on all the people she knew who died during those…

— Barbara Demick

“Under a system that sought to stamp out tainted blood for three generations, the punishment would extend to parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters,…

— Barbara Demick

“It is axiomatic that one death is a tragedy, a thousand is a statistic. So it was for Mi-ran. What she didn't…

— Barbara Demick

“Supervisors routinely fabricated statistics on agricultural production and industrial output because they were so fearful of telling their own bosses the truth.…

— Barbara Demick

“If North Koreans paused to contemplate the obvious inconsistencies and lies in what they were told, they would find themselves in a…

— Barbara Demick

“This is not the sort of thing that shows up in satellite photographs. Whether in CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, or in…

— Barbara Demick

North Korean defectors often find it hard to settle down. It is not easy for somebody who’s escaped a totalitarian country to…

— Barbara Demick

North Korea invites parody. We laugh at the excesses of the propaganda and the gullibility of the people. But consider that their…

— Barbara Demick

“It is worth noting here how extraordinary it was for anyone to be homeless in North Korea. This was, after all, the…

— Barbara Demick

“Kim Il-sung had promised North Koreans three bowls of rice every day. Rice, especially white rice, was a luxury in North Korea.…

— Barbara Demick