The challenges I have faced - among them material poverty, chronic illness, and being raised by a single mother - are not uncommon, but neither have they kept me from uncommon achievements.

People in some situations act worse than animals. You can't be a judge if you try to be a robot. Because then you're not going to be able to look at both sides, and hear both sides. At the same time, if you're being ruled by emotion, then you're not being fair and impartial.

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.

We apply law to facts. We don't apply feelings to facts.

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

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

I stand on the shoulders of countless people, yet there is one extraordinary person who is my life aspiration. That person is my mother, Celina Sotomayor.