In a way, a jail is a place where you can rest, read books and live with yourself.

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.

I found that a whole series of people opposed me simply on the grounds that I was a woman. The clerics took to the mosque saying that Pakistan had thrown itself outside the Muslim world and the Muslim umar by voting for a woman, that a woman had usurped a man's place in the Islamic society.

Through democracy we can address the basic needs of the people, involve them as participants in planning and restore the authority of the government.

Right now, they feel they have lost their voice, and their miseries have increased since my departure.

Democracy is necessary to peace and to undermining the forces of terrorism.

I'm not into smoke-filled rooms. I don't have the time for byzantine political intrigues.