Contraceptive protection is something every woman must have access to, to control her own destiny.
— Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Our goal in the '70s was to end the closed door era. There were so many things that were off limits to women: policing, firefighting, mining, piloting planes.
The concern was that if a woman was doing gender equality, her chances of making it to tenure in the law school were diminished. It was considered frivolous.
My mother was a powerful influence. She made me toe the line. If I didn't have a perfect report card, she showed her disappointment.
In the '50s, too many women, even though they were very smart, they tried to make the man feel that he was brainier. It was a sad thing.
I think we understand that for the Court to work well, we have to not only respect but genuinely like each other.
The label 'liberal' or 'conservative,' any - every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from 'Iolanthe.' It goes, 'Every gal and every boy that's born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.' What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.
In truth, I did enjoy the benefits of a Harvard connection.
It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong, and I would do it this way,' but the greatest dissents do become court opinions.
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!'
In 2015, an opera opened about me and Justice Antonin Scalia. It's called 'Scalia/Ginsburg.' The composer, Derrick Wang, has degrees in music from Harvard and Yale. Enrolled in law school, he was reading dueling opinions by me and Justice Scalia and decided he could compose an appealing comic opera from them.
An operatic voice is like no other.
I do a variety of weight-lifting, elliptical glider, stretching exercises, push-ups.
There's nothing in the Constitution that says the President stops being President in his last year.
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.
Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.
I was a proponent of the ERA. The women of my generation and my daughter's generation, they were very active in moving along the social change that would result in equal citizenship stature for men and women.
I'm sure I've changed my mind about something. Inevitably, when we grow up - as we get more experience and wiser. Well, I've changed my mind about some food that I didn't like when I was young.
My law school class in the late 1950s numbered over 500. That class included less than 10 women.
It's a facet of the gay rights movement that people don't think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn't until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana's 'head and master rule,' that the husband was head and master of the house.
When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.
All I can say is I am sensitive to discrimination on any basis because I have experienced that upset.
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.'
When I graduated from law school in 1959, there wasn't a single woman on any federal bench. It wouldn't be a realistic ambition for a woman to want to become a federal judge. It wasn't realistic until Jimmy Carter became our president.
My resume showed membership on both the Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews, a credit impressive abroad where it was not generally known that Law Reviews were student-operated publications.
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.'
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.
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 members of the legislature, people who have to run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed.
I was part of Jazzercise class. It was an aerobics routine accompanied by loud music, sounding quite awful to me. Jazzercise was popular in the '80s and '90s.
Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade.
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.
Justice Scalia and I served together on the D.C. Circuit. So his votes are not surprising to me. What I like about him is that he's very funny and very smart.
If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be 'Citizens United.' 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.
Remember that before 'Roe v. Wade' was decided, there were four states that allowed abortion in the first trimester if that's what the woman sought: New York, Hawaii, California, Alaska. Other states were shifting. And people were fighting over this issue in state legislatures.
Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.
My mother graduated from high school at 15 and went to work to support the family because the eldest son went to college.
I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.
I get very little sleep when the court is sitting.
I will do this job as long as I feel that I can do it full steam.
The entering class I joined in 1956 included just nine women, up from five in the then second-year class, and only one African American. All professors, in those now-ancient days, were of the same race and sex.
You can't have it all, all at once. Who - man or woman - has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.
At my advanced age - I'm now an octogenarian - I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who want to take my picture.
When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out.
I was a super once - an extra - in 'Die Fledermaus,' and was seated within three feet of Placido Domingo. I had never heard a voice of that beauty so close up. It felt as if an electric shock were running through me.
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.
It won't happen. It would be an impossible dream. But I'd love to see 'Citizens United' overruled.
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.
If I had any talent that God could give me, I would be a great diva.
You can disagree without being disagreeable.
