If people volunteered in the same way to construct schools or roads or even clear the river of plastic wrappers, by God, Pakistan would become a paradise within a year.

The Taliban could take our pens and books, but they couldn’t stop our minds from thinking.

If people were silent, nothing would change.

The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions. But nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.

We are human beings, and this is the part of our human nature, that we don't learn the importance of anything until it's snatched from our hands.

Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human.

I have the right of education. I have the right to play. I have the right to sing. I have the right to talk. I have the right to go to market. I have the right to speak up.