Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda though normal democratic means,

If you want to prove a contractual relationship with the United States, then the only relevant relationship is that as a spy.

You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil!...

Rights do not grow smaller or larger.

I’m not even sure I wanted it, to tell you the truth,

The line between protected pornography and unprotected obscenity lies between appealing to a good healthy interest in sex and appealing to a depraved interest, whatever that means,

He leads me to my best efforts because he is so sharp. It’s a challenge to write something as persuasive as his arguments. We are very fond of each other.

Why can’t the state accede to the public’s wishes?

Does it stop being a quota because it is somewhere between eight and 12 percent, but it is a quota if it is 10 percent? … Once you use that term ‘critical mass,’ you’re in...

Why not decide in advance? Why not take a run and see,

The Court today completes the process of converting [Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964] from a guarantee that race or sex will not be the basis for often will.

Are you saying Thanksgiving proclamations are inappropriate? … I don’t see why the one is good and the other is bad.

The honor would have been wonderful.

I would think the normal assumption is if one person wants that search excluded, that search is excluded.

Why in the world would you have it interpreted by nine lawyers?

You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations… until they were all litigated out.

There can be no such thing as either a creditor or a debtor race, … In the eyes of government, we are just one race, it is American.

forcing political parties to associate with those who do not share their beliefs. And it has done this at the crucial juncture at which party members traditionally find their collective voice and select their spokesman.

It was at most an irresponsibly speedy chase, … Is there any evidence that there was an intent to kill anybody?

The First Amendment has not repealed the ancient rule of life, that he who pays the piper calls the tune,

is locked in the heart of the president.

[Roberts quoted approvingly from comments by] Professor Scalia … recognized that non-uniformity in the interpretation of federal law could be criticized as ‘sloppy,’ but asked: compared to what? Given the choice between non-uniformity and the...

If we’re picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a ‘new’ Constitution, we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with us. When we...

I think we know what it’s aimed at, which is abortion protesters, … a totally different entity when you do it from eight feet away.

I really don’t understand what harm is done here,

then everything becomes an obtaining of property.

[The Freedom of Information Act is] the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences, the Sistine Chapel of Cost-Benefit Analysis Ignored.

We are unwilling to send police and judges into a new thicket of 4th Amendment law, to seek a creature of uncertain description that is neither a plain-view inspection nor yet a “”full-blown search.””

No statute pursues its purposes at all costs, … This is not play money.

A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.

It’s unrealistic to say (that while) he knows of his right to appeal, if the judge told him what he already knew, there would be a different outcome,

I assure you, I have no agenda.

Antitrust law is not there to protect the merchant, but to protect the consumer,

I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned.

In the public forum out in the street, can we have a law that enables people to turn off unwelcome speech?

I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to go through it today, I’ll tell you that much.

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached

It would be in the best interest of many children to take them away from their parents and give them to someone else. But the parents have rights.

He had a skin problem? … Who would have thought this could lead to cold-blooded murder?

that the jury is not.

The first instinct of power is the retention of power, and under a Constitution that requires periodic elections, that is best achieved by the suppression of election-time speech,

We’re all going to be old, … It’s unlike other personal characteristics such as race and sex.

If there was anybody that has been sort of the social glue of the court, it’s been Sandra and I will miss her,

find itself unable to resolve the significant legal issue presented by the case.

impact my heart in a very big way.

Many times in the campaign I said a few things like that without thinking through the implications of what I was saying.

Why are you picking on the parties?

What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?

this is not play money.

When dinner is over, it won’t be her bones on the table.