The dynamism of any diverse community depends not only on the diversity itself but on promoting a sense of belonging among those who formerly would have been considered and felt themselves outsiders.

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.

You can't be a minority in this society without having someone express disapproval about affirmative action.

I am growing to love DC. But the core of Sonia is a New Yorker.

I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me. That was its purpose: to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run.

I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.

I have never had to face anything that could overwhelm the native optimism and stubborn perseverance I was blessed with.