Sonia Sotomayor

Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

Much of the uncertainty of law is not an unfortunate accident: it is of immense social value.

I hope that as the Senate and American people learn more about me, they will see that I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences.

There are uses to adversity, and they don't reveal themselves until tested. Whether it's serious illness, financial hardship, or the simple constraint of parents who speak limited English, difficulty can tap unexpected strengths.

My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I think that the day a justice forgets that each decision comes at a cost to someone, then I think you start losing your humanity.

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

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.

The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.

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 have never, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive.

It is important for all of us to appreciate where we come from and how that history has really shaped us in ways that we might not understand.

I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights.

I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences.

I have never had to face anything that could overwhelm the native optimism and stubborn perseverance I was blessed with.

We apply law to facts. We don't apply feelings to facts.

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

Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people.

Until we get equality in education, we won't have an equal society.

I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.

I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale. Not so far off so that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions.

I don't prejudge issues. I come to every case with an open mind. Every case is new to me.

I'm young at heart. I'm young in spirit, and I'm still adventurous.

I found in my experiences that it's not that men are consciously discriminating against promoting women, but I do believe as people we have self-images about what's good.

I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me. That was its purpose: to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run.

I was raised in a Bronx public housing project, but studied at two of the nation's finest universities. I did work as an assistant district attorney, prosecuting violent crimes that devastate our communities.

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 and hope - you realize it comes from the environment you grew up in.

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.

All judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial.

In examining witnesses, I learned to ask general questions so as to elicit details with powerful sensory associations: the colors, the sounds, the smells that lodge an image in the mind and put the listener in the burning house.

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.

I've never wanted to get adjusted to my income, because I knew I wanted to go back to public service. And in comparison to what my mother earns and how I was raised, it's not modest at all. I have no right to complain.

An alcoholic father, poverty, my own juvenile diabetes, the limited English my parents spoke - although my mother has become completely bilingual since. All these things intrude on what most people think of as happiness.

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 am in control.

When I call myself an affirmative action baby, I'm talking about the essence of what affirmative action was when it started.

To have a romance, you have to have time. I'm a justice. I've written a book. The guy's gonna have to wait until I'm a little bit freer.

Diabetes taught me discipline.

I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences.

I stand on the shoulders of countless people, yet there is one extraordinary person who is my life aspiration. That person is my mother, Celina Sotomayor.

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

I barely saw my mother, and the mom I saw was often angry and unhappy. The mother I grew up with is not the mother I know now. It's not the mother she became after my father died, and that's been the greatest prize of my life.

Being a justice. If you love law the way I do... you're given the job of a lifetime... you're permitted to address the most important legal questions of the country, and sometimes the world. And in doing so, you make a difference in people's lives.

All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people out there with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law, I know. I know.

We educated, privileged lawyers have a professional and moral duty to represent the underrepresented in our society, to ensure that justice exists for all, both legal and economic justice.

I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government.