Benazir Bhutto Quotes

It would be so nice to have the luxury just to laze. So nice not to have to always get up and get dressed for some occasion. Always having to move from here to there, where everything is scheduled and even having lunch with my kids on their Easter break has to be slotted in. Maybe one day...

I know death comes. I’ve seen too much death, young death.

I really do think that there is at least some degree of causality that most major terrorist attacks took place when the extremists did not have to deal with a democratic Pakistani government, when they operated without check and oversight. I believe that if my government had not been destabilised in Pakistan in 1996, the Taleban could not have allowed Osama bin Laden to set up base in Afghanistan, openly recruit and train young men from all over the Muslim world and declare war on America in 1998.

I don’t fear death. I remember my last meeting with my father when he told me, "You know, tonight when I will be killed, my mother and my father will be waiting for me." It makes me weepy … but I don’t think it can happen unless God wants it to happen because so many people have tried to kill me.

My father always would say, "My daughter will go into politics? My daughter will become prime minister", but it’s not what I wanted to do. I would say, "No, Papa, I will never go into politics." As I’ve said before, this is not the life I chose; it chose me … But I accepted the responsibility and I’ve never wavered in my commitment.

My party would not have allowed the Taleban to become such a huge force that they would need to sign a peace treaty.

If the people vote for my party and parliament elects me as prime minister, it would be an honour for me to take up that role and General Musharraf would be there as president, so I think that a good working relationship between him and me would be a necessity for Pakistan. … I would have the choice of either respecting the will of the people and making it a success or being short-sighted and putting my personal feelings about past events ahead of the national interest, and what I want more than anything is for Pakistan to prosper as we make a transition to democracy

It’s premature to talk about working alongside General Musharraf at this stage, although in the past we have worked jointly on certain issues such as the Women’s Bill. At the same time, I want you to know that we are also partners with Mr Nawaz Sharif in something called the charter for the restoration of democracy, so we are talking about a new democratic process in which the people of Pakistan are allowed to choose their leader and put together a coalition. And for that we are calling for a robust international monitoring team to ensure that these elections are fair and free because obviously if they’re not, the ruling party will still be in the driver’s seat and the creeping Talebanisation of Pakistan will continue.

I was also too young and naive at Harvard to understand that the Pakistani army was capable of committing the same atrocities as any army let loose in a civilian population. The psychology can be deadly as it was when US forces massacred innocent civilians in Mylai in 1968.

How many times since have I asked God to forgive me for my ignorance? I didn't see then that the democratic mandate for Pakistan had been grossly violated.

The stories were so extreme I didn't know what to think. The lecture we'd been given about the dangers of rape during freshman orientation week at Radcliffe had initially seemed as unbelievable. I had never even heard of rape until I came to America and the very possibility of it kept me from going out alone at night for the next four years. After the lecture, the possibility of rape at Harvard was real to me. The rape of East Bengal was not. I found security in the official jingoistic line in our part of the world that the reports in the Western press were 'exaggerated' and a 'Zionist plot' against an Islamic state.

Looting. Rape. Kidnappings. Murder. Where no one had cared about Pakistan when I arrived at Harvard, now everyone did. And the condemnation of my country was universal. At first, I refused to believe the accounts in the Western press of atrocities being committed by our army in what the East Bengal rebels were now calling Bangladesh. According to the government-controlled Pakistani papers my parents sent me every week, the brief rebellion had been quelled. What were these charges then that Dacca had been burned to the ground and firing squads sent into the university to execute students, teachers, poets, novelists, doctors and lawyers? I shook my head in disbelief. Refugees were reportedly fleeing by the thousands, so many of them strafed and killed by Pakistani planes that their bodies were being used to erect road blocks.

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

I put my life in danger and came here because I feel this country is in danger. People are worried. We will bring the country out of this crisis.

If they only showed this much spunk when it came to containing the terrorists I don't think we would have such a problem.