Dissents speak to a future age.

My rule was I will not answer a question that attempts to project how I will rule in a case that might come before the court.

Anger, resentment, envy, and self-pity are wasteful reactions. They greatly drain one's time. They sap energy better devoted to productive endeavors.

I became a lawyer for selfish reasons. I thought I could do a lawyer’s job better than any other.

In most civil law systems there are no dissents. There is a single opinion for the court: it is unanimous; it is highly stylized; you can't tell which judge wrote it.

A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.

I conceived of myself in large part as a teacher. There wasn't a great understanding of gender discrimination. People knew that race discrimination was an odious thing, but there were many who thought that all the gender-based differentials in the law operated benignly in women's favor. So my objective was to take the Court step by step to the realization, in Justice Brennan's words, that the pedestal on which some thought women were standing all too often turned out to be a cage.