I really believe if you give people a product that couples entertainment with a little bit of education, a soft glove and sense of humor - especially about a subject people have begun to feel very frustrated about, which is the legal system - then you have a formula for success.
— Judy Sheindlin
They want to do the right thing, most people. For that little core that doesn't want to do the right thing and gets away with it routinely, most people want to see them get a good whupping. And I am your girl.
A judge is supposed to be able to make a decision, and when you make a decision, very often one party - and very often both - are a little disappointed.
When I go on vacation, I leave my house in total order: bills paid, garbage out, no milk in the refrigerator, mail done so that I can better negotiate what will await me.
Megyn Kelly is one of those rare women who seamlessly combines professional excellence and family. She doesn't need a catch phrase to define what she instinctively has accomplished. She just 'does it.'
Incarceration is supposed to keep the community safe from your behavior.
I go down to the gym unwashed, like something dragged in from behind a truck.
If you're going to spend your time, spend your time getting smarter.
People are supposed to be responsible.
The President of the United State is the leader of the free world, and the world has to be able to rely on his or her word, to feel that they have a good moral compass.
All the judges watched Judge Wapner. All America, at one point or another, watched Judge Wapner.
I knew where people were sleeping in the hallways, you know, instead of doing their job. I knew what systems weren't working.
All those good people huddling behind bars in gated communities - it's the wrong way round. The others should have the bars.
I don't feel as if anything that has happened to me in my life was sidetracked because I was a woman.
In too many ways, political correctness has been a bully.
I was in the family court for 25 years. And having started a second career, having a second act when you were 52 was something that I never thought would happen to me.
People from Brooklyn grow up with a certain common sense. If it doesn't ring true, it's not true.
I'm a law-and-order girl: I like people who do the right thing.
When I was a practising lawyer in the family court, there were too many judges who, when you left their courtroom, you didn't know whether you'd won or whether you'd lost.
I just think I'm direct.
If you take control over those things you can, you are better able to negotiate the unexpected.
TV was not in my future, not in my mind's eye.
We don't take Sweet'n Lows from restaurants anymore. I don't stuff dinner rolls into my pocketbook.
I set realistic goals consistent with my talents. I never, for instance, wanted to sit on an appellate court. I'm not an academic. Truth be told, I hate to do research. I have a practical mind, and I was well suited for the trial court bench, not the appellate.
I don't like to watch train wrecks.
If you commit a crime, you maybe have to be haunted.
To be considered presidential timber, there has to be a measure in the way you present your argument.
I was a sitting judge in Manhattan. I was a supervising judge in Manhattan, and they said to me, 'Did you ever think of doing what you do on television?'
I think I'm a good fact finder.
I started out in a two-room apartment in Brooklyn and thought, 'Never again.'
My first husband is a lovely, lovely man, but he always viewed my job as a hobby, and there came a time where I resented that.
I think that there is a difference between men and women as a warrior and a nurturer... It's innate.
I don't like to rule by committee. I like sort of an autocratic way of dealing with things.
You should want to give something back.
I don't mind getting my hands dirty, and I don't mind getting to the truth of a situation and saying, 'You're right, you're wrong, next case.'
I don't have two different personalities. I am what I am.
I would never interrogate a child or a spouse the way I would a litigant. People wouldn't want to be around you. You'd wind up all alone on an island.
Being a nurturer isn't being a moron.
Little things happen to us during the course of our lives when we were children that stay with us.
I'm realistic. I'm not becoming Farrah Fawcett here. If you stay beyond your welcome, it's for ego or money or because you can't exist without the limelight. I'm fine without it.
Long before I was Judge Judy, when I was an unknown worker bee, I usually got what I wanted.
While I sat in family court, I probably heard 20 or 25,000 cases. And I am sure, during the course of those cases, there were cases that I probably would've decided differently had I had either more time or been able to explore more. But all you can do as a judge is really give a case your best effort.
The reason that you have statutes of limitations is because evidence goes stale sometimes.
I try to have the right thing happen at the end of the case, try to have the case have a moral compass to it, try to do a little teaching while I'm at it because that's the, you know, that's the preacher in me.
I think that you're supposed to know when it's time to say goodbye.
It took them 13 years to get O. J. Simpson, but they got him. What goes around comes around.
Being a TV star is a great gift. Everyone treats you royally.
I don't read bad mail. I don't save mail. I'm too old to read negative things.
I never had an issue with gender.
I'm not a good interviewer.
