18 Quotes by Cambodian authors

Khmer sayings move with the cadence of monsoon rain, measured, nourishing, and sometimes sudden. They carry the warmth of village hearths and the cool of pagoda shade, favoring humble wit over grand pronouncement. Themes of karma, filial respect, shared labor, and the rise-and-fall of seasons thread through them like a krama: practical, protective, beautifully plain. Water and rice fields stand in for fate and patience; buffaloes, palm sugar, and the Mekong for work, sweetness, and flow. Beneath their gentle humor sits a steady ethic: endure, give, remember.

See the complete list of authors from Cambodia

"Since he is of no use anymore, there is no gain if he lives and no loss if he dies"

Pol Pot, Criminal

Small: Pol Pot

"When I die, my only wish is that Cambodia remain Cambodia and belong to the West. It is over for communism, and I want to stress that"

Pol Pot, Criminal

Small: Pol Pot

"I want you to know that everything I did, I did for my country"

Pol Pot, Criminal

Small: Pol Pot

"Cambodia wanted no part of SEATO. We would look after ourselves as neutrals and Buddhists"

Norodom Sihanouk, Royalty

Small: Norodom Sihanouk

"I'm quite modest. I don't want to tell people I'm a leader"

Pol Pot, Criminal

Small: Pol Pot

"Time will inevitably uncover dishonesty and lies; history has no place for them"

Norodom Sihanouk, Royalty

Small: Norodom Sihanouk

"It's up to history to judge"

Pol Pot, Criminal

Small: Pol Pot

"I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, to kill the nation. Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear"

Pol Pot, Criminal

Small: Pol Pot

"John Foster Dulles had called on me in his capacity as Secretary of State, and he had exhausted every argument to persuade me to place Cambodia under the protection of the South East Asia Treaty Organization"

Norodom Sihanouk, Royalty

Small: Norodom Sihanouk

"We have lost the art of sharing and caring"

Hun Sen, Statesman

Small: Hun Sen

"The lessons of the past should steer us towards ensuring lasting legacies for generations yet to be born"

Hun Sen, Statesman

Small: Hun Sen

"Yet, our achievements also mask many continuing failings and seem to expose more future dangers"

Hun Sen, Statesman

Small: Hun Sen

"Pol Pot will surrender, be captured or commit suicide"

Hun Sen, Statesman

Small: Hun Sen

"Let me reassure that the Kingdom of Cambodia a country with independence, neutrality, peace, freedom, democracy and human rights as you all have seen, shall be existing with no end"

Hun Sen, Statesman

Small: Hun Sen

"The trial organized with U.N. participation of some kind will be for crimes committed by Khmer Rouge leaders from 1975 to 1979. That's it"

Hun Sen, Statesman

Small: Hun Sen

"Peace, so elusive in the past many decades, now finally prevails all over the country"

Hun Sen, Statesman

Small: Hun Sen

"Cambodia possesses now the rights to look far into the future and everything for making a future construction is waiting for the Cambodian own efforts"

Hun Sen, Statesman

Small: Hun Sen

"We want to see all demonstrations stopped"

Hun Sen, Statesman

Small: Hun Sen