I listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a lawyer, because I knew how to read people's signals. When a witness hesitated, my mind would race to the conclusion that he was trying to hide something. What was it? I'd dissect the story in my brain and nine times out of ten figure out a hole they were trying to avoid.

Success is its own reward, but failure is a great teacher too, and not to be feared.

There are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action - to try to balance out those effects.

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

[On the desert:] The wind was a constant, and when you paid attention, it seemed like the earth's own breathing.

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.

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.