I scheduled the lessons, rolled up the carpet and committed myself to learning salsa. No longer would I sit there like a potted plant watching others… - Sonia Sotomayor

Their chances of escaping from the underclass, from the vicious cycle of poverty, were no better than those of their similarly alienated black neighbors and probably worse for those who didn’t speak English

SOMETIMES, no matter how long we’ve carried a dream or prepared its way, we meet the prospect of its fulfillment with disbelief, startled to see it in daylight. In part that may be because, refusing to tempt fate, we have never actually allowed ourselves to expect it.

But experience has taught me that you cannot value dreams according to the odds of their coming true. Their real value is in stirring within us the will to aspire.