I was a very shy girl who led an insulated life; it was only when I came to Oxford, and to Harvard before that, that suddenly I saw the power of people. I didn't know such a power existed, I saw people criticising their own president; you couldn't do that in Pakistan - you'd be thrown in prison.

Freedom is not an end. Freedom is a beginning.

To make peace, one must be an uncompromising leader. To make peace, one must also embody compromise.

The Internet is the great equalizer.The technology which emanated from the Silicon Valley of California has more potential to ameliorate social inequality than any development in the history of the world, including the industrial revolution.

Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.

Being in jail is difficult too because it's like being in a graveyard, you can't do much.

Pakistan is heir to an intellectual tradition of which the illustrious exponent was the poet and philosopher Mohammad Iqbal. He saw the future course for Islamic societies in a synthesis between adherence to the faith and adjustment to the modern age.