My concern was whether I could do the job of a justice well enough to convince the nation that my appointment was the right move.

The members of the court were just delighted to have a ninth member - male or female. They were all kind and welcoming.

Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.

And I went off to Stanford, I was pretty young and pretty naive. And I had a professor I really loved, who was himself a lawyer.

So how as a nation can we sit around and eat Mexican food, and drink beer and make friends? That's the question. If we can do that on a broader scale, I think we'll come out of it all right.

You have citizens who don't understand how government works and they're kind of soured on it. All they do is criticize. They have no idea that they can make things happen.

being a member of the court is a lot like walking through fresh concrete. Do you remember doing that as a child and leaving a footprint and it hardens after you? I'm afraid that's what we do and we look back and we see those opinions we've written and they've sort of hardened after us.