Sandra Day O'Connor

Each of us brings to our job, whatever it is, our lifetime of experience and our values.

If I stumbled badly in doing the job, I think it would have made life more difficult for women, and that was a great concern of mine and still is.

We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.

The abortion cases produced an enormous amount of mail to my chambers, vastly more than to the other chambers, I am sure. I sometimes thought there wasn't a woman in the United States who didn't write me a letter on one side or the other of that issue.

Commitment to the rule of law provides a basic assurance that people can know what to expect whether what they do is popular or unpopular at the time.

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 don't know how a judge can concentrate on being fair and impartial when he or she is faced with possible jail time for making a decision that others deem incorrect.

I think we may be seeing the beginnings of a resurgence of civic-mindedness in this country. Hopefully the younger generations, which came out in record numbers during the last presidential election, will pass their enthusiasm on to their children.

The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy. The problem comes when healthy criticism is replaced with more destructive intimidation and sanctions.

Yes, I will bring the understanding of a woman to the Court, but I doubt that alone will affect my decisions.