We liked to be known as the clever girls. When we decorated our hands with henna for holidays and weddings, we drew calculus and chemical formulae instead of flowers and butterflies.

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.

I think life is always dangerous. Some people get afraid of it. Some people don't go forward. But some people, if they want to achieve their goal, they have to go. They have to move.

I think everyone makes a mistake at least once in their life. The important thing is what you learn from it. That's why I have problems with our Pashtunwali code. We are supposed to take revenge for wrongs done to us, but where does that end? If a man in one family is killed or hurt by another man, revenge must be exacted to restore nang (honor).

In the future, women, rather than men, will be the ones to change the world.

I don't want to be remembered as the girl who was shot. I want to be remembered as the girl who stood up.

I want to just stay focused on my mission. That is to see every girl get the right to education. And I think this is such an important thing that girls get their right to go to school, and we are losing the potential that these young girls have in this region, like Iraq.