I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences.

If the issue is letting the states experiment and letting the society have more time to figure out its direction, why is taking a case now the answer?

That's why we have appellate judges that are more than one judge because each of us, from our life experiences, will more easily see different perspectives argued by parties. But judges do consider all of the arguments of litigants. I have. Most of my opinions, if not all of them, explain to parties by the law requires what it does.

In every position that I've been in, there have been naysayers who don't believe I'm qualified or who don't believe I can do the work. And I feel a special responsibility to prove them wrong.

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

Through reading, I escaped the bad parts of my life in the South Bronx. And, through books, I got to travel the world and the universe. It, to me, was a passport out of my childhood and it remains a way - through the power of words - to change the world.

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.