Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich.

The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn't have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself.

It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different. Now I understand that I've gotten to enjoy things that others have not, whether it's the laughter, the poetry of my Spanish language - I love Spanish poetry, because my grandmother loved it - our food, our music. Everything about my culture has given me enormous education and joy.

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

There are no bystanders in this life.

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

Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people.