Jeffrey Toobin · 384 pages
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“The result always mattered more than the rhetoric.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“He did what good lawyers always do. He shifted his argument in the direction his audience was already going.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“Toughened or coarsened by their worldly lives, the other dissenters could shrug and move on, but Souter couldn't. His whole life was being a judge.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“He denounced self-pity and pitied himself.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“Rehnquist was just reflecting his shifting role, from outsider to the institutional embodiment of the Court.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“There were two kinds of cases before the Supreme Court. There were abortion cases—and there were all the others.
Abortion was (and is) the central legal issue before the Court. It defined the judicial philosophies of the justices. It dominated the nomination and confirmation process. It nearly delineated the difference between the national Democratic and Republican parties.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“Purple prose attracts attention more than converts.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“He saw the Constitution as the vehicle to keep ecumenical passions in check.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“The dilemma facing Bush and the Republicans was clear. If Marshall left, they could not leave the Supreme Court an all-white institution; at the same time, they had to choose a nominee who would stay true to the conservative cause. The list of plausible candidates who fit both qualifications pretty much began and ended with Clarence Thomas.
… There was awkwardness about the selection from the start. "The fact that he is black and a minority has nothing to do with this," Bush said. "He is the best qualified at this time." The statement was self-evidently preposterous; Thomas had served as a judge for only a year and, before that, displayed few of the customary signs of professional distinction that are the rule for future justices. For example, he had never argued a single case in any federal appeals court, much less in the Supreme Court; he had never written a book, an article, or even a legal brief of any consequence. Worse, Bush's endorsement raised themes that would haunt not only Thomas's confirmation hearings but also his tenure as a justice. Like the contemporary Republican Party as a whole, Bush and Thomas opposed preferential treatment on account of race—and Bush had chosen Thomas in large part because of his race. The contradiction rankled.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
Jeffrey Toobin
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date May 21, 1960
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“At high school I was never comfortable for a minute. I did not know about Lonnie. Before an exam, she got icy hands and palpitations, but I was close to despair at all times. When I was asked a question in class, any simple little question at all, my voice was apt to come out squeaky, or else hoarse and trembling. When I had to go to the blackboard I was sure—even at a time of the month when this could not be true—that I had blood on my skirt. My hands became slippery with sweat when they were required to work the blackboard compass. I could not hit the ball in volleyball; being called upon to perform an action in front of others made all my reflexes come undone. I hated Business Practice because you had to rule pages for an account book, using a straight pen, and when the teacher looked over my shoulder all the delicate lines wobbled and ran together. I hated Science; we perched on stools under harsh lights behind tables of unfamiliar, fragile equipment, and were taught by the principal of the school, a man with a cold, self-relishing voice—he read the Scriptures every morning—and a great talent for inflicting humiliation. I hated English because the boys played bingo at the back of the room while the teacher, a stout, gentle girl, slightly cross-eyed, read Wordsworth at the front. She threatened them, she begged them, her face red and her voice as unreliable as mine. They offered burlesqued apologies and when she started to read again they took up rapt postures, made swooning faces, crossed their eyes, flung their hands over their hearts. Sometimes she would burst into tears, there was no help for it, she had to run out into the hall. Then the boys made loud mooing noises; our hungry laughter—oh, mine too—pursued her. There was a carnival atmosphere of brutality in the room at such times, scaring weak and suspect people like me.”
― Alice Munro, quote from Dance of the Happy Shades
“Bootleg miners did what’s called robbing back, working the mine the wrong way, back to front, chipping away the coal pillars that were left to support the mine roof. They took out the pillars, collapsing the mines. It made it impossible to stop the fire when the government filled the shafts with fly ash in the seventies, and again in the eighties.” Cate”
― Lisa Scottoline, quote from Dirty Blonde
“The garnets,' Sniff moaned. 'I didn't get a single one.'
Snufkin sat down beside him and said kindly: 'I know. But that's how it is when you start wanting to have things. Now I just look at them, and when I go away I carry them in my head. Then my hands are always free, because I don't have to carry a suitcase.”
― Tove Jansson, quote from Comet in Moominland
“Intelligence is only as good as the consumer's ability to believe and utilize it.”
― Antonio J. Méndez, quote from Argo: How the CIA & Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History
“mean that if you spend your time putting the love of your heart into what you do for those who are not your friends, you may often be disappointed and discouraged. But if you keep on trying you will find your happiness in loving, whether you are loved back or not.”
― Patricia St. John, quote from Treasures of the Snow
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