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.

The best I could say about third grade was that it was a more or less continuous state of dread.

The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.

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.

Don't be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing.

[On the desert:] The wind was a constant, and when you paid attention, it seemed like the earth's own breathing.

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.