When someone takes away your pens you realise quite how important education is.

I think of it often and imagine the scene clearly. Even if they come to kill me, I will tell them what they are trying to do is wrong, that education is our basic right.

If a woman can go to the beach and wear nothing, then why can't she also wear everything?

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

It is not time to tell the leaders to realize how important education is - they already know it - their own children are in good schools. Now it is time to call them to take action.

Outside his office my father had a framed copy of a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to his son's teacher, translated into Pashto. It is a very beautiful letter, full of good advice. Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books...But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside, it says. Teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat.

I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there was a gun in my hand and he was standing in front of me, I would not shoot him.