Quotes from Clarence Thomas

When you look at where the real problems are among minorities in our society, particularly blacks, it's at the bottom. It's the people who are in school systems that don't educate, neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime, drugs, the whole bit.

I tend to really be partial to Ayn Rand, and to The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

I do think that our freedoms are at risk.

I don't know one of my friends who is considered a conservative who has not had to go back and thoroughly think through everything. You do a lot of soul-searching - 'cause we are not going to win any popularity contests.

I don't really have the luxury to be bitter. I don't have the luxury of having negative things in my life.

I was never a liberal. I was radical. I was cynical. I was negative. But, I was never a liberal. I always saw that as too lukewarm for me.

I was Catholic. You talk about a minority within a minority within a minority: a black Catholic in Savannah, GA.

I have to admit that I'm one of those people that thinks the dishwasher is a miracle.

I think, though, if I had to look at the role of government and what it does in people's lives, I see the EEOC as having much more legitimacy than the others, if properly run.

Any discrimination, like sharp turns in a road, becomes critical because of the tremendous speed at which we are traveling into the high-tech world of a service economy.

There's a difference between someone who's 'harsh' and someone who is 'hard.' Life was hard. You lived in the South, as my grandparents did, and you had to survive. That is hard. In order to respond to that, he had to become a hard man, with very hard rules, very hard discipline for himself, very hard days, hard work, et cetera.

There's a difference between someone who's 'harsh' and someone who is 'hard.' Life was hard. You lived in the South, as my grandparents did, and you had to survive. That is hard.

Oh, I don't think Tom Sowell would tell anybody to join the administration. That's not his style. But I think his attitude has always been if it had to be done he'd prefer me to do it than somebody else.

I grew up in a religious environment, and I'm proud of it.

My job is to write opinions. I decide cases and write opinions. It is not to respond to idiocy and critics who make statements that are unfounded. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't have constructive criticisms, but it should be constructive.

I think Juan stopped short - he got halfway to the destination and got off the train. He is certainly an excellent writer and a good person, but I'm not a nationalist.

I think segregation is bad, I think it's wrong, it's immoral. I'd fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don't need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write. The NAACP needs to say that.

The myths that are created about the South, about the way we grew up, about black people, are wrong.

The truth of the matter is we have become more interested in designer jeans and break dancing than we are in obligations and responsibilities.

I certainly have some very strong libertarian leanings, yes.

There are so many people who have this idea of who I am because I'm black.

If I were a black liberal, I would be hailed, I guess. But I'm not. I mean, I think for myself. I want to make my own decisions.

Unfortunately, the reality was that, for political reasons or whatever, there was a need to enforce antidiscrimination laws, or at least there was a perceived need to do that.

I love being around people who work with their hands, who do the hard things to keep our country going. They're just my kind of people.