As a Catholic, you can have two views on capital punishment. You can think, let Caesar do what Caesar needs to do, and the law says you can impose capital punishment, so you impose it. You can [also] be a Catholic who says we can't kill, we can't kill babies and we can't kill adults. If you let a decision be driven by your personal views, then you are not doing what a judge needs to do, which is enforce the laws of the society that you are in. But you can control your own behavior, and that is the choice that the church and God gives us - what kind of people are we going to be.

You make your life choices understanding that you might and do have to work harder to prove yourself.

There are no bystanders in this life.

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.

Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

I've never had my dexterity called into question, but I think if that was ever the case, I could acquit myself by tossing a ball back and forth horizontally between my hands.

When I call myself an affirmative action baby, I'm talking about the essence of what affirmative action was when it started.