"I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a single word: Home."

"If there must be a moon, let it be high, a high moon made in Baghdad, neither Arab, nor Persian, nor claimed by the goddesses all around us."

"I know who opens the door to the jasmine tree as it makes our dreams blossom for the evening's guests."

"Please take your time. I want you to kill me slowly so I can write my last poem to my wife's heart. They laughed, and took from me only the words dedicated to my wife's heart."

"I prepare my portrait for my woman to hang on a wall when I die. she says: Is there a wall to hang it on? I say: We'll build a room for it. Where? In any house."

"May poetry and God's name have mercy on us!"

"In a world that has no heaven the earth becomes an abyss. And the poem is one of its consolation prizes. One of the qualities of the winds, north or south"

"He says I am from there, I am from here, but I am neither there nor here. I have two names which meet and part… I have two languages, but I have long forgotten— which is the language of my dreams"

"A poet need not trouble himself if he lies. He lies only in the matter of love, as the regions of the heart are open to tempting conquest."

"I leave the other side of my life where it wants to stay, and follow the remainder of my life in search of the other side of it."

"So let there be prose. There must be a divine prose for the Prophet to triumph"

"The poem is neither here nor there, and with a girl's breast it can illuminate the nights. With the glow of an apple it fills two bodies with light and with a gardenia's breath it can revive a homeland!"

"No one has arrived. Leave me there as you would leave a myth with any person who sees you until he cries and rushes into himself, afraid of happiness."

"I'll search in mythology and archeology and in every -ology to my old name. one of the goddesses of Canaan will side with me, then swear with a flash of lightning. This is my orphan son"

"This peace will leave us as a cluster of dust..."

"Words are a homeland."

"Perhaps death is a metaphor to remind us of a secret of life we failed to notice."

"Where can I write my latest account of the body's incarnation? It's the end of what was bound to end! Where is that which ends? Where can I free myself of the homeland in my body?"

"Had I known you, I would have possessed you, and had you known me, you would have possessed me. But then you and I would not be."

"I am here. Anything more than that is rumor and slander"

"In Damascus: the traveler sings to himself: I return from Syria neither alive nor dead but as clouds that ease the butterfly’s burden from my fugitive soul"

"The long road has drained me of all feelings and expectations. I don’t feel a thing or expect anything now."

"My mother always told me,"hide your face-people are looking at you".I would reply,"it does not matter;I am also looking at them"

"Our men think earning money and ordering around others is where power lies. They don't think power is in the hands of the woman who takes care of everyone all day long, and gives birth to their children."

"Life isn't just about taking in oxygen and giving out carbon dioxide."

"I don't want to be thought of as the "girl who was shot by the Taliban" but the "girl who fought for education." This is the cause to which I want to devote my life."

"He believed that lack of education was the root of all of Pakistan’s problems. Ignorance allowed politicians to fool people and bad administrators to be re-elected."

"The Taliban could take our pens and books, but they couldn’t stop our minds from thinking."

"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."

"Read thousands of books and I will power myself with knowledge. Pens and books are the weapons that defeat terrorism."

"One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world."

"With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism."

"We were scared, but our fear was not as strong as our courage."

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

"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."

"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 don't want awards, I want my daughter. I wouldn't exchange a single eyelash of my daughter for the whole world."

"One year ago I left my home for school and never returned."

"There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women."

"I was a girl in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while daughters are hidden away behind a curtain, their role in life simply to prepare food and give birth to children."

"If people were silent nothing would change."

"It seemed to me that everyone knows they will die one day. My feeling was nobody can stop death; it doesn't matter if it comes from a Talib or cancer. So I should do whatever I want to do."

"Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born."

"Is Islam such a weak religion that it cannot tolerate a book written against it? Not my Islam!"

"Now, every morning when I open my eyes, I long to see my old room full of my things, my clothes all over the floor and my school prizes on the shelves."

"At night our fear is strong . . . but in the morning, in the light, we find our courage again."

"They told us if they kill all the lions the wildlife will disappear, so now those who become warriors are those with higher education, not those who kill lions."

"I am in a country which is five hours behind my beloved homeland Pakistan and my home in the Swat Valley."

"If people volunteered in the same way to construct schools or roads or even clear the river of plastic wrappers, by God, Pakistan would become a paradise within a year."

"I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls."