I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences.
Sonia SotomayorRead
In examining witnesses, I learned to ask general questions so as to elicit details with powerful sensory associations: the colors, the sounds, the smells that lodge an image in the mind and put the listener in the burning house.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of asking the right questions to draw vivid details from witnesses, enhancing their narratives.
Sonia Sotomayor's quote highlights a crucial skill in effective communication and inquiry — the ability to formulate general questions that encourage witnesses to provide rich, sensory details. By doing so, one can create a compelling narrative that not only conveys information but also immerses the listener into the experience, making the details more memorable and impactful.
Themes
WitnessesQuestionsDetailsCommunicationSensoryNarrative
In practice
Example use cases
In a courtroom setting, a lawyer might use this quote to emphasize the importance of effective questioning.
More from Sonia Sotomayor
All quotes →This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear.
Sonia SotomayorRead
I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view.
Sonia SotomayorRead
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.
Sonia SotomayorRead
As you discover what strength you can draw from your community in this world from which it stands apart, look outward as well as inward. Build bridges instead of walls.
Sonia SotomayorRead
There are uses to adversity, and they don't reveal themselves until tested. Whether it's serious illness, financial hardship, or the simple constraint of parents who speak limited English, difficulty can tap unexpected strengths.
Sonia SotomayorRead
Similar quotes
I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.
Barack ObamaRead
Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.
Michel De MontaigneRead
Every day seems to bring news about another for-profit college scam. Hundreds of thousands of students have been deceived, misled, and harassed into enrolling at these schools where they end up with a mountain of debt and a worthless degree.
Dick DurbinRead
When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you. What I want is to have the reader come out just 6 percent more awake to the world.
George SaundersRead
The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things-the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.
Samuel JohnsonRead
If you're curious, you'll probably be a good journalist because we follow our curiosity like cats.
Diane SawyerRead