As prime minister, I was able often to meet people, to try to understand their needs and the country's economic situation - but it wasn't as if I was planning or ever expected to become president, so I wasn't thinking back then of what I would do if I was in this position, I was just trying to understand the problems and challenges.

One big difference between our situation in Myanmar and other situations around the world is that we're not just trying to achieve peace with one group but 11 groups - so it is incredibly complicated as well.

To have internal peace and stability and economic development, it is important to have good relations with the political parties that we have in our country. That is why we have had engagement with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

People would like to see peace and stability, and that is why we have had engagement with the ethnic armed groups. That's why our reform process is based on the wishes and the will of the people.

I think my first story sold for $550. This was in 1954, and it seemed like quite a lot of money, and I said to myself, 'Hey, I'm a professional writer now.'

You have a deeper purpose that drives you. You have to talk to yourself about what that purpose is. If you run through like a hamster to chase fame or money, you might end up wasting your life away. You find what drives you and gives you energy.

For those aspiring to make a living from travel photography, it's a sad fact that the boring shots are the shots that are going to make you money.

Civic poetry is public poetry. It is political poetry. It is about the hard stuff of life: money, crime, gender, corporate excess, racial injustice. It gives expression not just to our rites but also to our problems and even our values; these poems are not about rustic vacations.