Sonia Sotomayor
[On the desert:] The wind was a constant, and when you paid attention, it seemed like the earth's own breathing.Collection: Wind
One thing has not changed: to doubt the worth of minority students' achievement when they succeed is really only to present another face of the prejudice that would deny them a chance to even try. It is the same prejudice that insists all those destined for success must be cast from the same mold as those who have succeeded before them, a view that experience has already proven a fallacy.Collection: Views
I had many reasons for writing memoir but among them was the hope that every Latino child and adult would find something familiar in it.Collection: Children
People who live in difficult circumstances need to know that happy endings are possible. Page 1.Collection: People
If I go home, get a gun, come back and shoot you, that may not be legal under New York law because you would have alternative ways to defend.Collection: New York
Same way I have my entire life. Keep my family and friends close. My Latino friends close. I visit the island [Puerto Rico] as often as I humanly can.Collection: Islands
I'm a common law judge. I believe in deciding every case on its facts, not on a legal philosophy. And I believe in deciding each case in the most limited way possible, because common law judges have a firm belief that the best development of the law is the one that lets society show you the next step, and that next step is in the new facts that each case presents.Collection: Philosophy
Without question, so many people, throughout my life, never think of Puerto Rico as part of the United States.Collection: Thinking
I am growing to love DC.This [Washington] is a beautiful city. I think every citizen should come see their capital. A lot of the museums are free, there are restaurants that are reasonably priced.Collection: Beautiful
When I talk to kids, I often tell them, "I'm going to disappoint you someday. I won't be worth my salt as a judge if I don't render at least one decision that makes you unhappy. Because if I'm following the law - and I don't write them - there has to be some decision you won't like. Please don't judge any person by one act. Take from them the good and don't concentrate on the little things that make you unhappy." That's my approach to family and friends, too.Collection: Kids
That tide of insecurity would come in and out over the years, sometimes stranding me for a while but occasionally lifting me just beyond what I thought I could acomplish. Either way, it would wash over the same bedrock certainty: ultimately, I know myself.Collection: Years
I didn't know I had a sense of limitation until I got into the greater world.Collection: World
Even though Article IV of the Constitution says that treaties are the 'supreme law of the land,' in most instances they're not even law.Collection: Law
In the wider context, what I believe I was - the point I was making was that our life experiences do permit us to see some facts and understand them more easily than others.Collection: Believe
One of the other reasons for writing this book [My Beloved World] was to hold on to the person you first met. More of the world knows about me now and follows me in a way that never happened before. I didn't want me, the inside of me, to change. Because I liked Sonia, the Sonia who has been. So another reason for writing the book was to hold on to that - whatever the best in Sonia was, to try to capture it.Collection: Book
There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that's happening on what we consider our private property. That type of technology has to stimulate us to think about what is it that we cherish in privacy, and how far we want to protect it and from whom.Collection: Technology
To the extent that the parents who send their children to these [Catholic] schools are parents like my own, who actually have faith in the church. Faith that it will provide their children with safety, a decent education and values about life and others. This is an institution that stands for all good in the world.Collection: Children
I am growing to love DC. But the core of Sonia is a New Yorker.Collection: Growing
When you marry young, you run the risk that you'll grow in different directions.Collection: Running
I hope in my book [My Beloved World], that the sense that I really feel connected comes through.Collection: Book
As a Catholic, you can have two views on capital punishment. You can think, let Caesar do what Caesar needs to do, and the law says you can impose capital punishment, so you impose it. You can [also] be a Catholic who says we can't kill, we can't kill babies and we can't kill adults. If you let a decision be driven by your personal views, then you are not doing what a judge needs to do, which is enforce the laws of the society that you are in. But you can control your own behavior, and that is the choice that the church and God gives us - what kind of people are we going to be.Collection: Baby
As you may know from my life story, my cousin who was my soul mate went to a public school. And he died of AIDS. Would I and my brother have been able to resist the lure of drugs in the surrounding schools? Who knows.Collection: Cousin
I think being a Catholic made me a better person. It taught me how to choose good over evil, and how to be a more caring human being.Collection: Caring
In my experience when a friend unloaded about a boyfriend or spouse, the listener soaked up the complaint and remembered it long after the speaker had forgiven the offense.Collection: Long
how many times would a defendant's lawyer enter the courtroom before a session and ask each of the male clerks and paralegals around me, 'Are you the assistant in charge?' while I sat there invisible to him at the head of the table?Collection: Clerks
I accept the proposition that...“to judge is an exercise of power” and because...“there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives – no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging,” I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions.Collection: Exercise
I got a label because I was Hispanic and a woman and [therefore] I had to be liberal.Collection: Labels
I've never had my dexterity called into question, but I think if that was ever the case, I could acquit myself by tossing a ball back and forth horizontally between my hands.Collection: Thinking
I would warn any minority student today against the temptations of self-segregation: take support and comfort from your own group as you can, but don’t hide within it.Collection: Self
Looking out at that crowd, I imagined those who had not yet arrived, minority students who, in years to come, would make this multitude of faces, the view from where I now stood, a little more various. If they could have heard me, I would have confided in them: As you discover what strength you can draw from your community in this world from which it stands apart, look outward as well as inward. Build bridges instead of walls.Collection: Wall
So they can create a class they don't like-here, homosexuals-or a class that they consider is suspect in the marriage category, and they can create that class and decide benefits on that basis when they themselves have no interest in the actual institution of marriage as married?Collection: Gay
If the issue is letting the states experiment and letting the society have more time to figure out its direction, why is taking a case now the answer?Collection: Gay
Recalling the aftermath of her father's death from alcoholism at age 42, this memoirist reminisces: I couldn't deny that our life was so much better now, but I did miss him. For all the misery he caused, I knew with certainty that he loved us. Those aren't things you can weigh or measure away. ... They're not opposites that cancel each other out. They're both true at the same time.Collection: Father
What's quote-unquote a 'good' lawyer, doctor, or whatever the profession is. And if you're a male who grew up professionally in a male-dominated profession then your image of what a good lawyer is is a male image.Collection: Doctors
I got a message from one of my friends in Puerto Rico, who said, 'Sonia, there's nobody working in Puerto Rico - they're all glued to the television'. And I got a similar message from a friend in Spain.Collection: Spain
There had been questions raised about whether we could ever really unite to work together on an issue, whether we could do it with equal passion and fervor. And it happened during my nomination and I think I forever will be grateful for that love, for that support and for proving those naysayers wrong.Collection: Grateful
When I first became a judge on the district court, I had one lawyer who came to argue before me, and he was looking off to the side as he was talking. I started asking him questions, and all of a sudden he whipped around and looked at me intently. I could see in his eyes that he had finally figured out, "This is no dummy, I'd better pay attention." It is satisfying to see that.Collection: Eye
I am eternally grateful to all of the Latino groups outside of the Puerto Rican community, but including the Puerto-Rican community, who came to support me during the process [of nomination].Collection: Grateful
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 lawyer, because I knew how to read people's signals. When a witness hesitated, my mind would race to the conclusion that he was trying to hide something. What was it? I'd dissect the story in my brain and nine times out of ten figure out a hole they were trying to avoid.Collection: Mind
I think there's a large segment of the mainland population that does not really understand the number of territories that are part of the United States.Collection: Thinking
I am willing to bet that there are some Puerto Ricans who don’t know about [their status].Collection: Willing
That's why we have appellate judges that are more than one judge because each of us, from our life experiences, will more easily see different perspectives argued by parties. But judges do consider all of the arguments of litigants. I have. Most of my opinions, if not all of them, explain to parties by the law requires what it does.Collection: Party
I don't stand by the understanding of that statement that I will ignore other facts or other experiences because I haven't had them. I do believe that life experiences are important to the process of judging - They help you to understand and listen - but that the law requires a result. And it would command you to the facts that are relevant to the disposition of the case.Collection: Believe
My mom loved the book [My beloved world] and she said to me, 'I never knew you had done so much.'Collection: Mom
Each one of them [referring to her family] believed that hiding things is never good and that by sharing them, we could give hope to some people - because so many people we know have suffered some of the same things.Collection: People
I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can't rely on what's in their heart. It's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It's the law.Collection: Jobs