Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

by Irin Carmon

“I just try to do the good job that I have to the best of my ability, and I really don’t think about whether I’m inspirational. I just do the best I can.” —RBG, 2015

“Both men and women have one main role: that of being human beings.”

“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity,” she said simply. “It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”

Former clerk and onetime Columbia Law School dean David Schizer remembers another clerk showing him a draft opinion that RBG had gone over. She had crossed out and rewritten every single word in one paragraph—except “the,” which she’d circled, in a move the clerk assumed was meant to spare his feelings.

‘Anger, resentment, envy. These are emotions that just sap your energy,” RBG says. “They’re not productive and don’t get you anyplace, so get over it.’”