Sonia Sotomayor

“If I write a book where all I've ever experienced is success, people won't take a positive lesson from it. In being candid, I have to own up to my own failures, both in my marriage and in my...”

“I have ventured to write more intimately about my personal life than is customary for a member of the Supreme Court, and with that candor comes a measure of vulnerability.”

“The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn't have survived. I...”

“I listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a...”

“My diabetes is such a central part of my life... it did teach me discipline... it also taught me about moderation... I've trained myself to be super-vigilant... because I feel better when I...”

“Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich.”

“When I'm concentrating, I can be fixed in place for hours. In fact, there was a joke in my office that everybody would come and chat outside my door because they knew - no matter how loud th...”

“I am a New Yorker, and 7:00 A.M. is a civilized hour to finish the day, not to start it.”

“It is our responsibility to explain to the public how an often unpredictable system of justice is one that serves a productive, civilized, but always evolving, society.”

“I was a keen observer and listener. I picked up on clues. I figured things out logically, and I enjoyed puzzles. I loved the clear, focused feeling that came when I concentrated on solving a...”

“It's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases, it's the law.”

“If you're poor, you don't often live near a good school. If it's a competitive public school program, our kids are not prepared to enter those programs.”

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.”

“Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means - and in any context, whether it's judicial or otherwise - I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit...”

“Oh my God, I don't think you can say anyone looks forward to controversy.”

“My job as a prosecutor is to do justice. And justice is served when a guilty man is convicted and an innocent man is not.”

“So many people grew up with challenges, as I did. There weren't always happy things happening to me or around me. But when you look at the core of goodness within yourself - at the optimism...”

“No matter how liberal I am, I'm still outraged by crimes of violence. Regardless of whether I can sympathize with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes, the effects are o...”

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

“I do know one thing about me: I don't measure myself by others' expectations or let others define my worth.”