The government I led gave ordinary people peace, security, dignity, and opportunity to progress.

A people inspired by democracy, human rights and economic opportunity will turn their back decisively against extremism.

Dictatorships by their nature are unrepresentative as they neglect the social needs of the people.

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.

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.

I don't fear death. I remember my last meeting with my father when he told me, "You know, tonight when I will be killed, my mother and my father will be waiting for me." It makes me weepy ... but I don't think it can happen unless God wants it to happen because so many people have tried to kill me.

I believe that democracies do not go to war; that's the lesson of history, and I think that a democratic Pakistan is the world community's best guarantee of stability in Asia.