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

If he [the Talib] comes, what would you do Malalala? If you hit a Talib with your shoe, then there will be no difference between you and the Talib. You must not treat otherswith cruelty...you must fight others but through peace, through dialogue and through educationthen I'll tell him [the Talib] how important education is and that I even want education for your children as well that's what I want to tell you, now do what you want.

My father used to say the people of Swat and the teachers would continue to educate our children until the last room, the last teacher and the last student was alive. My parents never once suggested I should withdraw from school, ever. Though we loved school, we hadn't realized how important education was until the Taliban tried to stop us.

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.

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

When I look at my goal, my goal is peace.

Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.