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 wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can't rely on what's in their heart. It's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It's the law.

That tide of insecurity would come in and out over the years, sometimes stranding me for a while but occasionally lifting me just beyond what I thought I could acomplish. Either way, it would wash over the same bedrock certainty: ultimately, I know myself.

I'm a common law judge. I believe in deciding every case on its facts, not on a legal philosophy. And I believe in deciding each case in the most limited way possible, because common law judges have a firm belief that the best development of the law is the one that lets society show you the next step, and that next step is in the new facts that each case presents.

I got a message from one of my friends in Puerto Rico, who said, 'Sonia, there's nobody working in Puerto Rico - they're all glued to the television'. And I got a similar message from a friend in Spain.

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

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