How could I have been the valedictorian, the smartest, and never known Harlem existed? As a result, I began a lifelong learning experience, because I could not accept what the party line was with education - that these people want to live like this, these people don't have ambition, they don't want to work. You know, all the usual bullshit.

If you make a mistake as a prosecutor, your mistakes go home, whereas if you make a mistake defending, they go to jail.

I would never defend a cop - though I did on a few private cases, when cops were acting not as cops but as private citizens.

You know that question: What do you do when you think the client's guilty? The real question is: What you do when you think a client's innocent?

You've got to learn to handle the press because god knows the government does all the time.

I couldn't add my talent, which is prodigious, to a defense of someone even accused of hurting a child.

I'm particularly committed to the political people who needed defense. I understand that they're fighting a bigger war than just, "Let me go get some money for cocaine tonight."