As an attorney, I could be rather flamboyant in court. I did not act as though I were a black man in a white man’s court, but as if everyone else – white and black – was a guest in my court. When trying a case, I often made sweeping gestures and used high-flown language.

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.

I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the wren; and my hair is bold, like the chestnut bur; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass, that the guest leaves.

Jesus is a divine guest inside of you all the time – one who loves, understands, sees and hears you. He wants to live in oneness with you… to be the centerpiece of everything you do.

After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.

Some of the stuff I do on the court is what most people think they can do.

I like to get out and get up the court, using my speed and aggressiveness toward the hoop.

Of course, it does depend on the people, but sometimes I’m invited places to kind of brighten up a dinner table like a musician who’ll play the piano after dinner, and I know you’re not really invited for yourself. You’re just an ornament.

The court generally moves in small steps rather than in one giant step.

We had to go on and do the work of the court and we did.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.

A precedent embalms a principle.

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.

We think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this.

I think we understand that for the Court to work well, we have to not only respect but genuinely like each other.

I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man. I had to show the world.

I have fun out there on the court, smiling, laughing, trying to have good demeanor.

I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.

My biographers… would like to have my time at the court almost complete before they finish the book. We decided… to flip the order.

Eight, as you know, is not a good number for a multi-member court.