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

It is true that as you have children, there are a good many months when you don't want to be working full-time. I agree that that's an issue.

My concern was whether I could do the job of a justice well enough to convince the nation that my appointment was the right move.

My hope is that 10 years from now, after I've been across the street at work for a while, they'll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote.

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

The members of the court were just delighted to have a ninth member - male or female. They were all kind and welcoming.

The more education a woman has, the wider the gap between men's and women's earnings for the same work.

The No Child Left Behind Program was an incentive to the schools to get their kids up to snuff on math and science and reading.

The power I exert on the court depends on the power of my arguments, not on my gender.

There was no hostility at the court when I arrived.

Well, it's a little odd, the path I took, because when I was young, I wanted to be a cattle rancher. That was what I knew and that was what I liked.

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

Despite the encouraging and wonderful gains and the changes for women which have occurred in my lifetime, there is still room to advance and to promote correction of the remaining deficiencies and imbalances.

The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation.

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.

What was a problem was the excessive amount of media attention to the appointment of the first woman and everything she did. Everywhere that Sandra went, the press was sure to go. And that got tiresome; it was stressful.

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 had become increasingly concerned in recent years about the lack of civics education in our nation's schools. In recent years, the schools have stopped teaching it. And it's unfortunate.

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.

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.