What is important is that a political party articulates the mood of a generation.

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 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.

Whatever my aims and agendas were, I never asked for power.

Purusing peace means rising above one's own wants, needs, and emotions.

Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan.

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