My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.

I would not like to be the only woman on the court.

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.

Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise.

You would have a huge statelessness problem if you don't consider a child born abroad a U.S. citizen.

It is not women's liberation, it is women's and men's liberation.

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.

Who will take responsibility for raising the next generation?

I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman's equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.

Dissents speak to a future age.

It is not like I have gone crazy, I just don't want to take any chances. You never know what could happen.

Arizona presents no specific reason for excepting capital defendants from the constitutional protections extended to defendants generally, and none is readily apparent.

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.

We had to go on and do the work of the court and we did.

So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.

A gender line... helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

All I can say is I am sensitive to discrimination on any basis because I have experienced that upset.

America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores. All kinds of people. The image of the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus' famous poem. She lifts her lamp and welcomes people to the golden shore, where they will not experience prejudice because of the color of their skin, the religious faith that they follow.

An operatic voice is like no other.

Anybody who has been discriminated against, who comes from a group that's been discriminated against, knows what it's like.

At Columbia Law School, my professor of constitutional law and federal courts, Gerald Gunther, was determined to place me in a federal court clerkship, despite what was then viewed as a grave impediment: On graduation, I was the mother of a 4-year-old child.

At Cornell University, my professor of European literature, Vladimir Nabokov, changed the way I read and the way I write. Words could paint pictures, I learned from him. Choosing the right word, and the right word order, he illustrated, could make an enormous difference in conveying an image or an idea.

At my advanced age - I'm now an octogenarian - I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who want to take my picture.

Collegiality is crucial to the success of our mission. We could not do the job the Constitution assigns to us if we didn't - to use one of Justice Antonin Scalia's favorite expressions - 'Get over it!'

Contraceptive protection is something every woman must have access to, to control her own destiny.

Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.

Eight, as you know, is not a good number for a multi-member court.

Feminism... I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang, 'Free to be You and Me.'

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.

I always thought that there was nothing an antifeminist would want more than to have women only in women's organizations, in their own little corner empathizing with each other and not touching a man's world.

I can't imagine what this place would be - I can't imagine what the country would be - with Donald Trump as our president.

I certainly respect the belief of the Hobby Lobby owners. On the other hand, they have no constitutional right to foist that belief on the hundreds and hundreds of women who work for them who don't share that belief.

I do a variety of weight-lifting, elliptical glider, stretching exercises, push-ups.

I do a variety of weight-lifting, elliptical glider, stretching exercises, push-ups. And I do the Canadian Air Force exercises almost every day.

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.

I don't think that a Justice should have uppermost in her mind, 'A Democratic president appointed me, so I must leave to be sure that another Democratic president can appoint my successor.'

I get very little sleep when the court is sitting.

I really concentrate on what's on my plate at the moment and do the very best I can.

I think Mozart's operas 'The Marriage of Figaro' and 'Don Giovanni' are the two most perfect ever written. The music is magical.

I think a law clerk told me about this tumblr and also explained to me what Notorious RBG was a parody on. And now my grandchildren love it, and I try to keep abreast of the latest that's on the tumblr.

I think daughters can change the perception of their fathers.

I think members of the legislature, people who have to run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.