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

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.

Oppression does not know the meaning of provincial boundaries. Aren't our energies better spent fighting the common enemy instead of each other?

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

While living in America when I attended Harvard in the early 1970s, I saw for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change policy through democratic means.

Freedom is not an end. Freedom is a beginning.

I am constitutionally competent to contest the elections.