Haseeb Ahmed

“In God is Gracious, a satirical essay published in 1954, the writer Saadat Hasan Manto envisaged a Pakistan in which poetry, arts and music were silenced by accusations of blasphemy. His words proved prophetic”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“But the most profound effect of that era was on the Pakistan military’s thinking. Intoxicated by victory, the ISI sought to replicate its success in Afghanistan by employing the same tactics elsewhere. Through the 1990s, it established its own jihadi groups and deployed them to attack Indian soldiers in Kashmir, and it funnelled cash to foreign Islamist guerrillas as far afield as the Philippines. At home, the emboldened spy agency meddled aggressively in politics, mostly in an effort to oust Benazir Bhutto. ISI officers rigged elections, bought politicians and strong-armed troublesome judges. Critics began to speak of a ‘state within a state’.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“The ISI was founded, in 1948, by an Australian – General William Cawthorn, a British army officer, who stayed on after partition to help Pakistan establish its military.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein