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 think that even someone who got into an institution through affirmative action could prove they were qualified by what they accomplished there.

I don't stand by the understanding of that statement that I will ignore other facts or other experiences because I haven't had them. I do believe that life experiences are important to the process of judging - They help you to understand and listen - but that the law requires a result. And it would command you to the facts that are relevant to the disposition of the case.

One thing has not changed: to doubt the worth of minority students' achievement when they succeed is really only to present another face of the prejudice that would deny them a chance to even try. It is the same prejudice that insists all those destined for success must be cast from the same mold as those who have succeeded before them, a view that experience has already proven a fallacy.

The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.

Success is its own reward, but failure is a great teacher too, and not to be feared.

I listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a lawyer, because I knew how to read people's signals.