“When I went to law school, which after all was back in the dark ages, ...” — Sandra Day O'Connor Quote

“When I went to law school, which after all was back in the dark ages, we never looked beyond our borders for precedents. As a state court judge, it never would have occurred to me to do so, and when I got to the Supreme Court, it was very much the same. We just didn't do it.”

“It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.”

“A moment of silence is not inherently religious.”

“I'm a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it's terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don't like.”

“The fact is, we are a nine-member court that sits on cases.”

“Young women today often have very little appreciation for the real battles that took place to get women where they are today in this country. I don't know how much history young women today know about those battles.”

“I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.”

“After the fall of the Soviet Union, if you start the clock, then 47 journalists, reporters, cameramen, photographers have been killed in Russia since the fall of communism. That makes it the third most deadly country on Earth to practice journalism. That's not a record to be proud of.”

“Between 1945 and 1965, the number of colonial people ruled by the British monarch plunged from 700 million to five million. In 1956, just three years after the coronation, the Suez canal crisis and Anthony Eden's humiliation ended all notions that Britain was a world superpower.”

“Storytelling in Appalachian culture - it runs deep. You have these communities and families that, for a long time, were isolated, and if you did have time off after working to keep everything going, you'd sit around and just yak, just talk and tell tall tales and flat-out lies and try to one-up the guy who just told a story.”

“I've got to keep working, you know. After all these years it gets into your blood.”