When I'm concentrating, I can be fixed in place for hours. In fact, there was a joke in my office that everybody would come and chat outside my door because they knew - no matter how loud they talked - if I was concentrating, it would not disturb me at all.

A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.

As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society.

When I first became a judge on the district court, I had one lawyer who came to argue before me, and he was looking off to the side as he was talking. I started asking him questions, and all of a sudden he whipped around and looked at me intently. I could see in his eyes that he had finally figured out, "This is no dummy, I'd better pay attention." It is satisfying to see that.

We apply law to facts. We don't apply feelings to facts.

In my experience when a friend unloaded about a boyfriend or spouse, the listener soaked up the complaint and remembered it long after the speaker had forgiven the offense.

I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view.