It helps to know how to lose. You know it is not the end of the world, and you pick yourself up and move ahead.
— Janet Reno
My father was born in Denmark. He came to this country when he was 12 years old.
I know from personal experience what it's like to be discriminated against. I remember people telling me, 'Ladies don't become lawyers,' and now I look at America and know what can be done.
We've got to look to our educational programs and focus on doing what we can to stem violence in the schools.
All lawyers are going to have to - if we really want to attain civil justice - address the issue of how complicated we have made the laws: what we have done to ensnarl the American people in bureaucratic rules and regulations that make access to services or compliance with the law sometimes difficult, if not impossible.
I'm a scuba diver but not certified.
I want there to be a real partnership between the Department of Justice in Washington and U.S. attorneys.
I think police officers can work with social workers and public health nurses to do so much in terms of addressing the problem of American families, of children in American families as a whole, and giving them an opportunity to get off to a fresh start, to become self-sufficient, to lead safe, constructive lives.
I think the answer to civil disorder in America, the answer to police problems in America, the answer to jail overcrowding and all the problems that we see is - the one answer is that government must go back to its people.
The first job I ever had in my life was in the Dade County Sheriff's Office in the Identification Bureau in the summer that I graduated from high school and was getting ready to go to college.
While I'm the Attorney General, we will address each issue with one question: What's the right thing to do?
We want to look at everything we can do that's right and proper under federal law, and with federal laws to see that the children of America are given a chance to grow as strong, constructive, healthy human beings. It's the best investment we can possibly make in America.
Under a death penalty statute that is going to stand up to constitutional muster, you look at the aggravating circumstances and the mitigating circumstances.
I would like to use the law of this land to do everything I possibly can to protect America's children from abuse and violence and to give to each of them the opportunity to grow to be strong, healthy and self-sufficient citizens of this country.
One of the problems in America is that everybody focuses on their own narrow little bit of the problem without connecting punishment and prevention together, without connecting the schools and the police together, without connecting the pediatricians and the social workers together.
Juveniles as well as adults need to know they're going to be punished for their violent acts.
I think, clearly, where you have a situation in which the Solicitor General tells me, 'I cannot in good faith argue a certainly legal position,' and if the president told us to argue that position, we would have to tell him, 'No, we can't do that, Mr. President.'
If you have a good community behind you and a good family supporting you, then, when the buck stops with you, there is the strength of that community and that family to draw upon.
What good is telling America's children that they will have equal opportunity for education if they don't have the skills that will even get them to the point of benefiting from education, because they didn't have the child care, the health care that would enable them to grow as strong and constructive human beings?
Though the Attorney General of the United States carries many responsibilities and undertakes many tasks, there can be none more important than the pursuit of civil rights on behalf of all the people of this country.
We've got to understand that the ages of zero to three are the most formative years of a person's life, the time they learn the concept of reward and punishment and develop a conscience, and that 50 percent of all learned human response is learned in the first year of life.
One of the reasons I love the law is because I was raised in family - my grandfather was a lawyer, but more importantly, my grandmother was his secretary. And she taught me that lawyers were some of the most civil, most courteous - and in those days, most courtly - people that she knew.
Lawyers are very important people to me.
U.S. attorneys have taught me a lot over the years, and in the Southern district of Florida, they have been to me partners.
A cop by themselves on every corner is not going to make that much difference.
Police and prosecutors and the courts have got to talk together.
My mother taught us to play baseball, to bake a cake, to play fair - she beat the living daylights out of us sometimes, and she loved us with all her heart; she taught her favorite poets, and there is no child care in the world that will ever be a substitute for what that lady was in our life.
I want to make sure there are no gatekeepers at the AG's door, and that anybody in the Department - they may have to come relatively late in the evening, just judging by the schedules to date - but if somebody has suggestions for how to make this a better department, that they know I am available.
People should look at the government as 'us,' not as 'them' and not in terror.
This is a beautiful country. Each of us has a favorite river, a mountain, just a patch of sky for some of us. I want to use the law to make sure that the waters, the land, and the skies of this nation are protected.
I'm humbled by the honor that President Clinton has done me in nominatinq me as Attorney General of the United States, and I'm going to do my very best to deserve his confidence.
What has too often happened in the past is that people have threatened punishment but have failed to carry it out. It's imperative in any initiative that is undertaken that punishment be real and that there be truth in sentencing, and that the truly dangerous offenders - the recidivists and the career criminals - be put away and kept away.
I'm vitally interested in cyber crime and in preparing law enforcement for a time when crime is international in its origins and its consequences.
I would like to visit with people who are so interesting and so... and there are so many wonderful people out there that I would love to have the chance to talk to for a longer time.
I hope I will be a good Attorney General, but one of the things that will be as important to me is to know that I made a commitment to my family and honored it, a commitment that has been repaid 10,000 times over.
America, in all its institutions, whether it be the family or government, has forgotten and neglected its children.
Schools can do extraordinary things given the chance; teachers can do remarkable things if we eliminate the paperwork that sometimes binds them and give them a chance to really teach in our schools.
I collected child support in Dade County, and they wrote a rap song about me, so the kids knew about it, and they started asking me questions about child support. What happens if she wastes the money? What happens if he doesn't pay? And I answered the questions.
I love lawyers. And I like to talk to lawyers, and I like to engage in a spirited discussion with lawyers.
The law is very special to me.
There may sometimes be a mistake, but I think that the citizens of America who are sworn to uphold their duty in a jury setting are going to try to do their best to do that regardless of the consequences.
You are not going to put 100,000 police officers on the streets overnight and do the right job. To put them on the streets, to see that they're properly trained; you have to do it in an orderly way over a period of time.
It is the police of America who are on the front lines, who are on the streets, who are in the daily contact with American citizens, who translate the dreams of American citizens when they succeed and frustrate the dreams when they fail.
If you disagree with me about a position I have taken, or what I've done, tell me, argue with me, debate. Sometimes, right and good are not that clear; at other times, it is only deliberate and respectful debate that leads us to understand what road we should take.
I think that a woman's right to choose should be protected. I think it should be protected from physical conduct that prevents that right to choose from being freely exercised.
I think that affirmative action programs can be very important.
I want to do what I can to make the law make sense to citizens and businesses alike. I want the laws to assist them in worthwhile endeavors, not to stand as bureaucratic obstacles.
If the end brings me out right, what people said about me won't make any difference, and if the end brings me out wrong, 10 angels saying I was right won't make any difference.
I think one of the keys to any crime-prevention program that's got to be developed is to focus on punishment - to let people know that there is a sanction and a punishment for hurting others.
I'm interested in elder justice and what we can do about elder abuse and neglect.
