“Whatever my aims and agendas were, I never asked for power.”

I seek to lead a democratic Pakistan which is free from the yoke of military dictatorship and that will cease to be a haven, the very petri dish of international terrorism.

Military dictatorship is born from the power of the gun, and so it undermines the concept of the rule of law and gives birth to a culture of might, a culture of weapons, violence and intolerance.

I am planning to return and contest the October elections in Pakistan.

I’ve never had a bank account in Switzerland since 1984. Why would the Swiss do this to me? Maybe the Swiss are trying to divert attention from the Holocaust gold scandal.

Our people are dying, poverty and unemployment are on the rise, but the rest of the world says that Musharraf is needed because [only] he can stop nuclear proliferation, [only] he [can launch] an operation in the tribal areas.

To make peace, one must be an uncompromising leader. To make peace, one must also embody compromise.

I was brought up to believe that human beings are good, which is why it shocks me to the core when I see human beings behaving badly.

I found that a whole series of people opposed me simply on the grounds that I was a woman.

Pakistans future viability, stability and security lie in empowering its people and building political institutions.

Being in jail is difficult too because it’s like being in a graveyard, you can’t do much.

I find that whenever I am in power, or my father was in power, somehow good things happen. The economy picks up, we have good rains, water comes, people have crops. I think the reason this happens is that we want to give love and we receive love.

All our problems, all our disputes, all our disagreements can be resolved quickly to mutual satisfaction if we address the question.

Purusing peace means rising above one’s own wants, needs, and emotions.

Democracy is the best revenge. After Benazir Bhutto’s death, her son’s brief public remarks were captured on video, and they were reported in international newspapers. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari announced, “My mother always said, ‘ Democracy is the best revenge.

No, I am not pregnant. I am fat. And, as the Prime Minister, its my right to be fat if I want to.

My goal is to prove that the fundamental battle for the hearts and minds of a generation can be accomplished only under democracy.

The pen is an instrument of discovery rather than just a recording implement. If you write a letter of resignation or something with an agenda, you’re simply using a pen to record what you have thought out.

I have no agenda, nothing to control.

[On her writing agenda:] Make the familiar exotic; the exotic familiar.

If you’re black and you oppose a progressive agenda, and you’re pro life, and you’re pro family, then they do not even know what to call you. You end up on some watch list for extremists.

Using terrorism or jihadists or extremists for any political agenda is immoral.

Some of these agendas wanted me to quit, very simply, so they said “we have all the guarantees if you want to leave, and all the money and everything you want.” Of course, you just ignore that.

Jesus existed, and those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda that this denial serves.