The Noor Al-Hussein Foundation (Light of Al-Hussein) was created to complement my husband's efforts to advance development in the country.

I pretty much always feel gratitude. I thank God throughout the day.

In the poorest countries...it is women who are the key to breaking out of poverty...and preparing another generation for...leading their countries into real security.

I did feel a sense of duty. I felt that it could be a great asset to the future of Jordan, and those continuing the process of building the country, to concentrate on that humanitarian, peace-building legacy.

War over water would be an ultimate obscenity. And yet, unfortunately it is conceivable... Water has been a source over so many years of erosion of confidence, of tension, of human rights abuses, really, of so many in areas whose traditional water supplies have been controlled and depleted by occupational authorities. That must stop if we're going to be able to develop a climate for peace.

I think there are always going to be fanatics and charismatic extremists who are going to be able to draw a following.

Everyone I knew, including my new friends in Jordan, expressed horror at the realities of the Holocaust. But they resented, as I was growing to, how Arabs were cast as the aggressors in the dispute between Israel and the Arab countries, when it was their land that had been seized to resolve a European political problem.