"Pakistanis were starting to suffocate. Darkness was enveloping the country, but also silence. The silence was hard to penetrate from the outside world. Fear kept people from speaking, the local press was muzzled, and news coverage of Pakistan was dominated not by the abuses of Zia’s regime but by laudatory reporting of his role in promoting and supporting the war against the Soviets next door in Afghanistan—America’s war. Decades later, when they thought back to the 1980s, the memory of that time would make Pakistanis shudder. Censorship was intensifying; journalists were being lashed, some were hanged. People started to disappear, picked up in the dead of night by the police, their relatives and friends left with no recourse under martial law. There were no more cafés, no more clubs, only deepening fear. Save for the occasional folkloric performance, most stage dancing was banned. Scores of performers left the country, taking with them parts of the country’s memory and heritage. Under the weight of censorship, the vibrant Pakistani movie industry was shrinking and cinemas were shutting down. No new ones were built for decades. Life retreated indoors."

"This is not a letter on Pakistan. If it were, I could have written a small book entitled "Glimpses of Pakistan's history". Time does not permit it. The nation is gripped in her worst crisis, standing in the middle of the road between survival and disintegration. Since the birth of Pakistan, crisis has followed crisis in rapid escalation. Millions of lives were sacrificed to create this country. Pakistan is said to be the dream of Mohammad Iqbal and the creation of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Quaid-e-Azam. Was anything wrong with the dream or with the one who made the dream come true? Opinions have differed and continue to differ. The next few years will most probably decide the issue, perhaps once and for all, and not without bloodshed. This process is not inevitable but the present policies of the ruling junta are driving this country towards a sad inevitability"

"Zia's military dictatorship, once again fully backed by the United States, was the worst period in the country's history. Zia's men were dense, deaf and heartless. The new regime had decided to use Islam as its battering ram, and its bearded supporters, often incredibly stupid, were opportunist to the marrow of their bones. They combined religion with profanities of the vilest kind. Under Zia, despotism and lies mutilated a whole generation. Islamic punishments were introduced, public floggings and hangings instituted. The political culture of Pakistan was brutalised. It has still to recover. Washington and London watched from the sidelines as the country's elected leader was executed. Work on the nuclear programme continued, but Washington now chose to ignore the process because by now the pro Moscow Afghan left had seized power in Kabul."

"Pakistan is like Israel, an ideological state. Take out Judaism from Israel and it will collapse like a house of cards. Take Islam out of Pakistan and make it a secular state; it would collapse. For the past four years we have been trying to bring Islamic values to this country."

"Cricket can be a bridge and a glue... Cricket for peace is my mission."

"I genuinely feel that the survival of this country lies in democracy and democracy alone."

"What is a constitution? It is a booklet with twelve or ten pages. I can tear them away and say that tomorrow we shall live under a different system. Today, the people will follow wherever I lead. All the politicians including the once mighty Mr. Bhutto will follow me with tails wagging."

"Pakistan which was created in the name of Islam will continue to survive only if it sticks to Islam. That is why I consider the introduction of [an] Islamic system as an essential prerequisite for the country."

"I think they'd both lose miserably."

"The excesses committed during the unfortunate period are regrettable."

"If we want to normalize relations between Pakistan and India and bring harmony to the region, the Kashmir dispute will have to be resolved peacefully through a dialogue, on the basis of the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. Solving the Kashmir issue is the joint responsibility of our two countries … Mr Vajpayee, … I take you up on this offer. Let us start talking in this spirit."

"“Kashmiris who came to Pakistan received a hero reception here. We used to train them and support them. We considered them as Mujahideen who will fight with the Indian Army. Then, various terrorist organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba rose in this period. They (jihadi terrorists) were our heroes.” ... [Osama bin Laden and Jalaluddin Haqqani were] “Pakistani heroes”. “In 1979, we had introduced religious militancy in Afghanistan to benefit Pakistan, and to push the Soviets out of the country. We brought Mujahideen from all over the world, we trained them and supplied weapons to them. We trained the Taliban, sent them in. They were our heroes. Haqqani was our hero. Osama bin Laden was our hero. Ayman al-Zawahiri was our hero. Then the global environment changed. The world started viewing things differently. Our heroes were turned into villains.”…"

"We are in a state where these semi-literate clerics are closing the minds of people."

"General Pervez Musharaff, supposedly an ally in the fight against Islamic terrorism, seized power in Pakistan with a military coup that overthrew an elected government. He appointed himself president in 2001 and then attempted to legitimize his rule by being elected in 2002. However, the election was heavily boycotted and did not come close to meeting international standards. Musharraf agreed to step down as head of the military at the end of 2004, but then changed his mind, claiming that the nation needed to unify its political and military elements and that he could provide this unity. He justified his decision by stating, "I think the country is more important than democracy." Musharraf was an ardent supporter of Afghanistan's Taliban regime. Yet his greater transgression concerns Pakistan's role in the spread of nuclear technology. In early 2004 it was revealed that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the head of Pakistan's nuclear weapons development program, had been selling nuclear technology to the dictatorships of North Korea, Libya, and Iran. Musharraf claimed, rather unconvincingly, that he knew nothing about this dangerous and illict trade. He also gave Khan an unconditional pardon."

"I wish President Musharraf well, we want to work with him to bring greater balance in our own relations. But I have to be realistic enough to recognize the role that terrorist elements have played in the last few years in the history of Pakistan. Taliban was the creation of Pakistan extremists, the Wahabi Islam which has flourished, thousands and thousands of schools, the madrassas, were set up to preach this jihad based on hatred of other religions . . . and Pakistan is not a democracy in the sense that we know and you know. . . . We wish Pakistan success in emerging as a moderate Muslim state. We will work with President Musharraf . . . but we have to recognize what has happened."

"General Musharraf commented on the Hamood-ur Rehman Commission report while at the UN Millennial Conference in New York, in September 2000. He said. Let s forget the bitterness of the past and move forward. [....] Something happened 30 years ago. Why do we want to live in history? As a Pakistani, I would like to forget 1971."