32 Quotes by Loung Ung

I've watched them grow up and study Russian history and American history, ... and they didn't know any Cambodian history. They didn't understand us. They're not going to get the story anywhere else and I just wanted them to know.

The story was always there and it wouldn't go away. My memory was never silent.

They are having a hard time surviving the peace after they survived the war,

In America there's a saying that children should be seen and not heard, ... In Cambodia, children should not be seen nor heard because you would not survive.

I have to find food -- either I have to hurt somebody, or I have to steal it from somebody.

In America there's a saying that children should be seen and not heard, .. In Cambodia, children should not be seen nor heard because you would not survive.

To all the survivors out there, I want them to know that we are stronger and more resilient than we ever knew. We survived, that should be enough but it isn't. We must work hard to become whole again, to fill our soul with love and inspiration, to live the life that was intended for us before it was disrupted by war and horrors, and help rebuild a world that is better than the one we had just left.

From 1975 to 1979 - through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor - the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country's population.

Courage is when you dare to be yourself, in whatever ways you want to be - to not be afraid, to just do it.