I want first-time offenders to think of their appearance in my courtroom as the second-worst experience of their lives - circumcision being the first.

People from Brooklyn grow up with a certain common sense. If it doesn't ring true, it's not true.

I knew that if I worked hard, I could have both - I could have a family, because that was important to me, and I could have a career.

I left family court for the vagaries of TV and said to myself, 'Judy, what the hell are you thinking?' It seems like only yesterday.

I started out in a two-room apartment in Brooklyn and thought, 'Never again.'

I just think I'm direct.

Not everything has to be a money-making operation. You do things sometimes because it makes you feel good.

It's nice to leave on top.

I go down to the gym unwashed, like something dragged in from behind a truck.

My viewers are smart. They know I have a contract with a TV show and that I make a lot of money.

I think the fundamentals of America are strong.

I'm an entertainer, and I'm paid as an entertainer.

A combination of tenacity and luck brought me here today.

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.

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.

I'm not a good interviewer.

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.

You lock your windows before you leave. You put on an alarm if you live in the country because you know that there are bad people out there. Well, in this Internet age, you know that there are bad people out there. And no matter what you do, those bad people are going to get into your house.

Uh' is not an answer.

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.

When states and cities and our country say we're going to tax the rich - and that word 'rich' or 'wealthy' doesn't sound like it comes from success of hard work, but from something negative - I resent it.

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.

I don't know where, or by whom, Judge Wapner was raised, but my parents taught me, when you don't have something nice to say about someone, say nothing.

All the judges watched Judge Wapner. All America, at one point or another, watched Judge Wapner.

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 deal with conflicts that irritate people and give them stress, like the dispute over a car payment. I can resolve those cases in a moment.

I eat liars for breakfast.

Incarceration is supposed to keep the community safe from your behavior.

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.

I think that there is a difference between men and women as a warrior and a nurturer... It's innate.

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?'