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

Sonia Sotomayor

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" 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 outrageous. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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. "

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" 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. "

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

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" Each time I see a split infinitive, an inconsistent tense structure or the unnecessary use of the passive voice, I blister. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" I have had positive experiences with cameras. When I have been asked to join experiments using cameras in the courtroom, I have participated; I have volunteered. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" The first case I sat on... was Citizens United. Talk about being thrown in. Needless to say, if I was scared before, I was terrified. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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 problem and everything else faded out. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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 they talked - if I was concentrating, it would not disturb me at all. "

Sonia Sotomayor

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

Sonia Sotomayor

" The worst thing you want is a willy-nilly judge who is swayed by the political whims of the era or the time. What you want is a judge who is thinking about what he or she is doing and is thinking about it in a principled way. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" I do think there is a value in the services of judges for long periods of time. "

Sonia Sotomayor

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

Sonia Sotomayor

" I honestly felt no envy or resentment, only astonishment at how much of a world there was out there and how much of it others already knew. The agenda for self-cultivation that had been set for my classmates by their teachers and parents was something I'd have to develop for myself. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" I don't prejudge. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" I think it's important to move people beyond just dreaming into doing. They have to be able to see that you are just like them, and you made it. "

Sonia Sotomayor

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

Sonia Sotomayor

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

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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. "

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 work environment. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" The task of a judge is not to make the law - it is to apply the law. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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 a male image. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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 to the system. "

Sonia Sotomayor