At least I can say that I'm honest.
I have been a judge for 15 years and I've made up my own mind during all that time.
My father was brought to this country as an infant. He lost his mother as a teenager. He grew up in poverty. Although he graduated at the top of his high school class, he had no money for college. And he was set to work in a factory but, at the last minute, a kind person in the Trenton area arranged for him to receive a $50 scholarship and that was enough in those days for him to pay the tuition at a local college and buy one used suit. And that made the difference between his working in a factory and going to college.
I've learned a lot during my years on the 3rd Circuit, particularly, I think, about the way in which a judge should go about the work of judging. I've learned by doing, by sitting on all of these cases. And I think I've also learned from the examples of some really remarkable colleagues.
My mother worked for more than a decade before marrying. She went to New York City to get a master's degree. And she continued to work as a teacher and a principal until she was forced to retire. Both she and my father instilled in my sister and me a deep love of learning.
I attended the public schools. And I have happy memories and strong memories of those days and good memories of the good sense and the decency of my friends and my neighbors.
My mother is a first generation American. Her father worked in the Roebling Steel Mill in Trenton, New Jersey. And yet my mother became the first person in her family to get a college degree.
Sometimes when something really works well, it becomes a target, forty years for me, I've been a part, and I've loved every minute of it. My family has done so well with it. It's been a beautiful thing for me. I've saved lives with it and saved my own life several times. Through my loss of my son, it helped me every step of the way for two years solid, and here I am.
He pulled my coat off my shoulders, looked at it with distaste, hung it on the back of one of the chairs pushed in under the kitchen table. "You are beautiful". No one had ever looked me in the eyes and said that. Eric to Sookie, Page 208.
I have never acted in one and I'm not at all interested to do so either.
I think if we continue to create jobs at levels that I'm creating jobs, I think that's going to have a tremendous impact - positive impact - on race relations.