I think that the legitimacy of the court would be undermined in any case if the court made a decision based on its perception of public opinion.

My mother is a first generation American. Her father worked in the Roebling Steel Mill in Trenton, New Jersey.And yet my mother became the first person in her family to get a college degree.

I have been shaped by the experiences of the people who are closest to me, by the things I've learned from [my wife] Martha, by my hopes and my concerns for my children, Philip and Laura, by the experiences of members of my family, who are getting older, by my sister's experiences as a trial lawyer in a profession that has traditionally been dominated by men.

In an era where the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens, I find Judge [Samuel] Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling.

Many people have been positive influences in my life. My parents, whom I mentioned, were the most important, but many of my teachers were also a big help to me.

When I became a judge, I stopped being a practicing attorney. And that was a big change in role.The role of a practicing attorney is to achieve a desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand. But a judge can't think that way. A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case and a judge certainly doesn't have a client.

This was a time of great intellectual excitement for me. Both college and law school opened up new worlds of ideas.