Art strives for form, and hopes for beauty.

The judiciary must not take on the coloration of whatever may be popular at the moment. We are guardian of rights, and we have to tell people things they often do not like to hear.

Its always the minorities who arent a part of the mainstream who define what the limits... of the majority are going to be.

It is easy to be popular. It is not easy to be just.

My role isn't to be politically smart. My role is to do what's right under the constitution. And if that's politically unpopular, so be it.

Courts are an aristocratic institution in a democracy. That's the dilemma for an institution that has the function of reviewing the will of the people. We're bound to be "anti-majoritarian."

The courts are an easy scapegoat because at a time when everything has to boiled down to easy slogans, we speak in subtleties.

We are incarcerating more people on a per capita basis in California than any country in the world other than South Africa or the Soviet Union.

Do no harm and leave the world a better place than you found it.

It is never hard to convince a man of something he already wants to believe

Seldom do we think about how seldom we think.

We have a system of justice in [the US] that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes.

I'm a fun person. I like cracking jokes and being completely nerdy.

I'm a generous host, but I'm a difficult and interfering guest. When I go around to other people's houses and they're cooking, I'm always telling them what to do.

The most important thing a writer can have [is] the ability to live with the constant loneliness and a strong sense of revulsion for the banalities of everyday socializing.

People will protect what they love.

The subject and the reality of having children came at the height of my career.

Almost all women will give a sympathizing hearing to men who are in love. Be they ever so old, they grow young again with that conversation, and renew their own early times.