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" I have spent my years since Princeton, while at law school and in my various professional jobs, not feeling completely a part of the worlds I inhabit. I am always looking over my shoulder wondering if I measure up. "

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" 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. "

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" When you come from a background like mine, where you're entering worlds that are so different than your own, you have to be afraid. "

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

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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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" My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law. "

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

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" 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. "

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" Sometimes it gets boring. No justice is supposed to say that. But, you know, there's drudgery in every job you're going to do. "

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" I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences, but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" I savor life. When you have anything that threatens life... it prods you into stepping back and really appreciating the value of life and taking from it what you can. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" I realized that people had an unreal image of me, that somehow I was a god on Mount Olympus. I decided that if I were going to make use of my role as a Supreme Court Justice, it would be to inspire people to realize that, first, I was just like them and second, if I could do it, so could they. "

Sonia Sotomayor

" 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. "

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" 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 cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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

Sonia Sotomayor

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

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

" This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear. "

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

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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. "

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" 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. "

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" 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

" 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. "

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