Everybody's Daughter

图片取自 Team Booktopia’s 2013 Favourites

　　'Let us pick up our books and our pens,' I said. 'They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.' I didn't know how my speech was received until the audience gave me a standing ovation. My mother was in tears and my father said I had become everybody's daughter.

Feel All Warm and Glowy Inside

图片取自 Curling Up by the Fire

　　Closure wasn't supposed to feel sad like this.

Life is Special

图片取自 Curling Up by the Fire

　　Dad is wrong about that. A movie is better than real life because in the movies only the bad guys die. Or you can pick the good movies where the bad guys die and only watch those. If you get tricked and a good person dies in the movie then you can rewrite it in your head so the good person lives and the part about death is superfluous.

　　Right honey?

When Women Say They Want Independence

图片取自 Team Booktopia’s 2013 Favourites

　　In Pakistan when women say they want independence, people thinks this means we don't want to obey our fathers, brothers or husbands. But it does not mean that. It means we want to make decisions for ourselves. We want to be free to go to school or to go to work. Nowhere is it written in the Quran that a woman should be dependent on a man. The word has not come down from the heavens to tell us that every woman should listen to a man.

Future

图片取自 Team Booktopia’s 2013 Favourites

　　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 realised how important education was until the Taliban tried to stop us. Going to school, reading and doing our homework wasn't just a way of passing time, it was our future.

No One Has Feel This Fear

图片取自 Team Booktopia’s 2013 Favourites

　　'Are you scared now?' I asked my father.

那你要不要药？

图片取自 博客来

　　没错，我们应该要尊重每个人选择宗教和生活的方式。幸福或快乐与否，是自己才知道的。

　　我们在沿途上遇到的藏民、喇嘛，风霜的脸庞上，往往看得见愉快的笑容。过着比开发中国家落后几百倍的贫穷生活，却没有像在非洲那样追着人要钱的事情，或许他们真的是安贫乐道的修行人吧。

　　我跟着喇嘛来到了恒河边，看见那条对印度人来说象征生和死的河流，这些人依着这条河流过日子，即便那么贫穷，却还能露出笑容。

　　仔细想想，或许是我们真的太不懂知足与珍惜了。