Here in South Korea, I'm continuing to learn English in order to boost my prospects. When North Korean defectors try to get a job to stabilize their lives, their lack of English is a handicap. It was the same story while I was living in China. It took an enormous amount of time and enthusiasm to learn Chinese.

Lee Hyeon-seo

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you've become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that's the height of intelligence.

Alice Walker

Life Intelligence Happiness

As the name of the agency suggests, 'Department of Defense,' the defense refers to the United States of America - not the defense of South Korea, not the defense of Ukraine, not the defense of Syria or Germany.

Ann Coulter

Men Art Age

North Korea's whole idea is to create a crisis to solve a crisis. They're so poor and they're so desperate that they realize that this bombastic rhetoric can drive the South Korean stock market down and get the U.S. in a tizzy. And it's a game they've been playing for many, many years.

Barbara Demick

Yin Years Year

A South Korean teenager, 18-year-old male, is about five inches taller than his North Korean counterpart. And there are many soldiers who are only about 4'6". The height requirement is supposed to be 4'9". That's the size of my 12-year-old son.

Barbara Demick

Teen Men Art

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

War Time Would

If South Korea is going to survive, and keep the peace on the peninsula, its citizens need to start conveying support for their state.

Brian Reynolds Myers

Peace Art Zen

People tend to overlook the fact that North Korea's economy collapsed at about the same time as South Koreans lost faith in their own state. The late 1980s and early 1990s were a time when South Koreans were questioning the very legitimacy of their republic.

Brian Reynolds Myers

Time Faith Were

Since the Korean War, U.S. and South Korea have established an enduring friendship with shared interests, such as denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, combating aggression abroad and developing our economies.

Charles B. Rangel

War Friendship Wit

I served four years in the Air Force in South Korea, and my brother, Aaron, served in the Army there, too, on the DMZ.

Chuck Norris

Years Year Too

I want to make Seoul the front line of the new South Korea. Seoul is sleeping, and I want to wake it up.

Chung Mong-joon

Want Wake Up

When I tell people I'm from South Korea, almost 10 out of 10 say something like, 'Koreans have great skin!' And it's true.

Claudia Kim

Great True Thing

When I was almost two years old, my grandmother flew from Hongcheon, South Korea, to Flushing, Queens, to take care of me.

Crystal Hana Kim

Car Years Year

The Marines in Korea never feared 'friendly fire' or artillery coming from the South Koreans - from their allies - like they did later in Vietnam, fighting with the South Vietnamese. The Koreans could be trusted.

David Douglas Duncan

Trust Fear Art

South Korea is a vigorous democracy, with strong judicial institutions and a commitment to the rule of law.

David Lidington

Men Wit Vigorous

We've been worried for some time that one of the ways that North Korea can retaliate against further escalation of tensions is via cyber, and particularly attacks against our financial sector. This is something they have really perfected as an art against South Korea.

Dmitri Alperovitch

Time Art Worried

My favorite thing about South Korea is the people - they are so kind and helpful.

Elana Meyers

Thing Thin T

As mayor, I've traveled to China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Mexico to meet with heads of state and business leaders to promote trade with L.A. companies and through L.A.'s seaports and airports - because that generates L.A. jobs.

Eric Garcetti

Travel Business Wit

The United States depends on South Korea and Japan to help promote American values in East Asia.

Evan Bayh

Values Value United States

When I was growing up in South Korea in the '70s and early '80s, the country was too poor to buy original records. Everything was bootlegged.

Ha-Joon Chang

Wing Win Very

It was good to launch the economy in the '50s. Japan did this; China did this; even South Korea did this. All the East Asians did this - import substitution. I think all countries followed import substitution in the '50s and in the '60s, but I think by the '70s, countries were getting out of that first phase of the strategy.

Jairam Ramesh

Good Were Wed

I think South Korea was one of the best shows I've ever done in my whole life. The people there were crazy. It was literally Beatlemania.

Jens Lekman

Unlike the Afghans and Iraqis, the South Korean people solidly supported the American military presence, which was part of a United Nations operation.

John Eisenhower

I've often found myself looking fondly at the Valentine's cultures in other countries. South Korea, for instance - where women must give chocolate to men.

John Niven

My parents were South Korean immigrants who came to America in the early 80s for the hope of a better life for their children.

Jonny Kim

South Korea has very few natural resources. The country isn't stocked with oil, much natural gas, or even many minerals. What it does have is an enormous quantity of sheet masks, BB creams, essences, and face masks packaged to look like tomatoes.

Kayleen Schaefer

When I started working in human rights, Eastern Europe was communist, South Africa was under apartheid and South Korea had military rule. All the changes have come about not because of the militaries or government but because small groups of people spoke out against what was unfair and unjust.

Kerry Kennedy

You know, North Korea situation is far worse than East Germany, and South Korea is weaker than West Germany.

Kim Dae Jung

So South Korean ability is very much limited to handle North Korean, you know, difficulties. So we don't want to see an immediate collapse of the North Korea regime.

Kim Dae Jung

If America would withdraw from South Korea, there could be a power struggle between such as China and Japan.

Kim Dae Jung

South Koreans who have seen and praised the mass games should remember the hardship of tearful children. Teachers drive them hard with curses and orders to repeat and repeat. When the children return home in the evening, they can hardly walk.

Kim Il-sung

In 2013, Samsung accounted for about 20 percent of South Korea's total business profits. Samsung Electronics, just one of scores of subsidiaries, accounts for close to 15 percent of the total shares in the South Korean stock market. But you don't need to know these figures to get a feel for Samsung's hold on the country.

Kim Young-ha

Handwritten political posters - often composed in an artless and unadorned style, usually just words on plain white paper - were ubiquitous in South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s and were one of the few outlets available for expressing political views. Most posters were anonymous and put up under the cover of night.

Kim Young-ha

A military career offers the stability many South Korean women crave.

Kim Young-ha

From the early 1960s to the mid-1980s - the era of military dictatorship when South Korea was rebuilding itself from a postwar economic basket case to a humming, modern nation - military schools were the track of choice for ambitious young men.

Kim Young-ha

Just like any other company, Samsung can fail, and if that happens, how will the South Korean economy overcome the shock? If we don't decrease our over-reliance on the chaebols and prepare to let smaller, dynamic start-ups fill the gaps in their place, it won't.

Kim Young-ha

South Korea first allowed women into the military in 1950 during the Korean War. Back then, female soldiers mainly held administrative and support positions. Women began to take on combat roles in the 1990s when the three military academies, exclusive to men, began accepting women.

Kim Young-ha

In the early 2000s, people expected that anonymity on the Internet would be positive for the development of democracy in South Korea. In a Confucian culture like South Korea's, hierarchy can block the free exchange of opinions in face-to-face situations. The web offered a way around that.

Kim Young-ha

For all the popularity of spiritual advisers in South Korea, it still shocks to see the leaders of huge public companies relying on fortune-tellers. A shaman may advise a struggling executive to move a building's front entrance, tapping the widespread pungsu belief that your luck depends on the direction of your house.

Kim Young-ha

I feel very sorry for the one or two North Korean defectors who were caught by Chinese police while entering South Korean or foreign embassies in Beijing, but their arrest drew the whole attention of the world.

Kim Young-sam

I don't think the current regime of South Korea will deal actively with the issue of North Korean defectors.

Kim Young-sam

My favourite place in South Korea is Jeju Island: it's a tropical paradise with sandy beaches, turquoise waters, and the magnificent Geomunoreum lava tube system of underground caves.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Breathing in South Korea, even though the life here is not easy, makes me so happy. I feel that sitting in a coffee shop, having a cup of tea, and looking out of the window at the blue sky - this is happiness. Truly happiness.

Lee Hyeon-seo

I defected to South Korea in search of freedom of speech and movement. I had longed to put my feet on this soil, even in my dreams.

Lee Hyeon-seo

It was very shocking for me to read newspapers that openly criticised the government in South Korea. That is impossible in North Korea and almost impossible in China. I was really impressed, and I became addicted to reading the news and watching the media so I could learn about the world. North Koreans would be stunned if they experienced this.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Even after arriving in South Korea, it's dangerous. As a North Korean defector, I need to be careful from the spies to protect my relatives inside North Korea.

Lee Hyeon-seo

We refugees, we become always a punchbag. A political punchbag between China and South Korea and North Korea.

Lee Hyeon-seo

When I was little, I thought my country was the best on the planet. And I grew up singing a song called 'Nothing To Envy.' And I was very proud. In school, we spent a lot of time studying the history of Kim Il-Sung, but we never learned much about the outside world, except that America, South Korea, Japan are the enemies.

Lee Hyeon-seo

My family lived under communism their entire lives. When they arrived in South Korea, they didn't even know how to use the bank system and ATM or the subway, nothing.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Here in South Korea, I'm continuing to learn English in order to boost my prospects. When North Korean defectors try to get a job to stabilize their lives, their lack of English is a handicap. It was the same story while I was living in China. It took an enormous amount of time and enthusiasm to learn Chinese.

Lee Hyeon-seo

I believe I'll see the reunification of North and South Korea in my lifetime and that defectors should play a role in rebuilding the country. In the long run, I want to return to North Korea, because that's where I belong.

Lee Hyeon-seo