I am growing to love DC. But the core of Sonia is a New Yorker. Sonia Sotomayor More Quotes by Sonia Sotomayor More Quotes From Sonia Sotomayor Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. Sonia Sotomayor latina-women judging facts When everyone at school is speaking one language, and a lot of your classmates' parents also speak it, and you go home and see that your community is different -there is a sense of shame attached to that. It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different. Sonia Sotomayor growing-up home school Pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career. Sonia Sotomayor princess careers fun 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 mother father thinking 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 writing book people I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government. Sonia Sotomayor government decision real The President [Barack Obama] had suggested that I not watch the news during the confirmation process. I assiduously followed his advice. Sonia Sotomayor president advice watches Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich. Sonia Sotomayor rich grew-up challenges My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law. Sonia Sotomayor fidelity law philosophy . . . But experience has taught me that you cannot value dreams according to the odds of their coming true. Their real value is instirring within us the will to aspire. That will, wherever it finally leads, does at least move you forward. And after a time you may recognize That the proper measure of success is not how much you've closed the distance to some far-off goal but the quality of what you've done today. Sonia Sotomayor distance real dream I came to accept during my freshman year that many of the gaps in my knowledge and understanding were simply limits of class and cultural background, not lack of aptitude or application as I'd feared. Sonia Sotomayor understanding class years I don't have a professional aspiration. But I do have a personal one: I want to continue growing as a person. I want to reach out more to people, learn more from them. Ultimately, I would like to be a great justice that people remember with respect and fondness. Sonia Sotomayor justice remember people Outside of the marriage context, can you think of any other rational basis, reason, for a state using sexual orientation as a factor in denying homosexuals benefits or imposing burdens on them? Is there any other rational decision-making that the government could make? Denying them a job, not granting them benefits of some sort, any other decision? Sonia Sotomayor gay jobs thinking 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. Sonia Sotomayor prejudice differences judging 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. Sonia Sotomayor poor kids school Diabetes taught me discipline. Sonia Sotomayor diabetes taught discipline With my academic achievement in high school I was accepted rather readily at Princeton and equally as fast at Yale, but my test scores were not comparable to that of my classmates. And that's been shown by statistics, there are reasons for that - there are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action to try to balance out those effects. Sonia Sotomayor motivation yale school I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences. Sonia Sotomayor blessed opportunity today I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view. Sonia Sotomayor views people years 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 different-experiences merit mean
