I don't mind if I have to sit on the floor at school. All I want is education. And I'm afraid of no one.

I would tell him that shoot me but first listen to me. And I would tell him that education is my right and education is the right of your daughter and son a well. And I'm speaking up for them. I'm speaking up for peace.

I was a girl in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while daughters are hidden away behind a curtain, their role in life simply to prepare food and give birth to children.

This is the philosophy of nonviolence that I have learned from Gandhi, Bacha Khan and Mother Teresa.

We felt like the Taliban saw us as little dolls to control, telling us what to do and how to dress. I thought if God wanted us to be like that He wouldn't have made us all different.

Once I had asked God for one or two extra inches in height, but instead he made me as tall as the sky, so high that I could not measure myself.

We realize the importance of light when we see darkness. We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced. In the same way when we were in Swat, we realized the importance of pens and books when we saw the guns.