Clarence Thomas

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.

I've probably given more speeches, been on TV more than any other member of the Court - or almost any other member of the Court.

I disagree with the prevailing point of view of some black leaders that special treatment for blacks is acceptable.

I hear people say it affected your self-esteem to be segregated. It never affected mine.

I still have a 15¢ sticker on the frame of my law degree. It's tainted, so I just leave it in the basement.

When I went into the seminary, I was one of those victims of New Math and had not had Algebra I and had no idea what we were doing in New Math in the ninth grade. But when I went into the seminary, they had gone the traditional route and taught first-year algebra.

My grandfather could barely read. My grandmother had a sixth-grade education. They were people who were industrious. They were frugal.

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.

But I know that the vote of 9 out of 10 black Americans for the Democratic Party or for leftist kinds of policies just is not reflective of their opinions.

But what I believe is that if a person's individual rights or right to be a part of our economic system is violated under statute, we aggressively go after it. But we don't issue mandates to businesses that you've got to do this and you've got to do that.

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 was sympathetic to virtually all groups that wanted to get away from the old system.

I'd been very partial to Malcolm X, particularly his self-help teachings.

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 do think that our freedoms are at risk.

Even as someone who's labeled a conservative - I'm a Republican I'm black, I'm heading up this organization in the Reagan administration - I can say that conservatives don't exactly break their necks to tell blacks that they're welcome.

People get bent out of shape about the fact that when I was a kid, you could not drink out of certain water fountains. Well, the water was the same.

And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.

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

It really bugs me that someone will tell me, after I spent 20 years being educated, how I'm supposed to think.