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.

A city without books, a city without a library is like a graveyard.

Let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons.

Let us pick up our books and pencils. They are our most powerful weapon.

They thought that the bullets would silence us, but they failed.

The content of a book holds the power of education and it is with this power that we can shape our future and change lives.

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.