Nina Totenberg > Quotes

“We think of all those we have loved and still love, and it is the eternalness of that love that brings them to this place at this time. Our remembrances do not detract from our joy but reinforce it.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“poet Mary Elizabeth Frye’s words: Do not stand there at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow; I am the diamond glints on the snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain; I am the gentle autumn’s rain. When you awaken in the morning’s hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds encircled flight. I am the soft star that shines at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there; I did not die.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“We, most of us, may be born with an innate desire for friendship, companionship, and love, but being good at any of those things takes work. There is no quick method for learning how to do it right. Floyd ultimately became a very wonderful and supportive husband No marriage is perfect; it’s a question of whether the marriage matters to you enough to be able to make adjustments and repairs—and we did that.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“It is possible to be a great friend by doing some things, but not attempting to do everything.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“revolutionary it was in 1971. At that time, women had very few rights beyond the right to vote.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“All of them have taught me that friendship is precious, that it involves showing up, that it involves supporting and helping, that it is not always about the grand gesture, but rather about the small one.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“Mary Elizabeth Frye’s words: Do not stand there at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow; I am the diamond glints on the snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain; I am the gentle autumn’s rain. When you awaken in the morning’s hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds encircled flight. I am the soft star that shines at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there; I did not die.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“Losing your temper is not good for dealing with people, and it’s not good for you. The person who feels the worst afterwards is usually you.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“The court did not adopt an “intermediate scrutiny” test until five years later, in another case that Ruth argued and won. The test would be strengthened further in a 1982 opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“You know, Nina, you can’t be there all the time. It’s not good for you and it’s not good for him. You need to go there, to the hospital. You need to make sure that he’s being properly cared for. You need to make your presence known to him. But you should only go for an hour. If you spend your whole day there, every day, you will lose who you are.” She paused and added, “He has to be able to come home, and you have to be able to really take care of him when he comes home, and you won’t be able to do that if you let yourself get sucked into this.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“My father came to the United States on an artist’s visa in 1938 and stayed. He was able to save his mother by getting her passage on the last ship to sail from Portugal for the United States before World War II began. Her passport was signed by Aristides De Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese diplomat who saved thousands of European Jews.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“For years Republicans have claimed that her answers set the standard for saying nothing artfully.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“The justices could get away with this because they were not covered by the nation’s civil rights laws and the justices led lives much more remote from the public than they do today.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“Even if your spouse has been sick for a very long time, as was true for both David and me, you find yourself realizing that a whole part of you is gone.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“In those days, the Supreme Court docket was twice as big as it is now; the Court took on between 140 and 160 cases each term.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“The argument may seem obvious today, to the point where it is hard to conceive of how revolutionary it was in 1971. At that time, women had very few rights beyond the right to vote. They could be fired for being pregnant. They often could not apply for credit cards in their own names—only in their husbands’ names; a woman generally could not get a mortgage by herself. Even if she was married, banks routinely refused to count her income.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“Her memories were also strongly shaped by World War II, “the overwhelming influence,” she called it, adding, “Unlike our recent wars, there was a right side and a wrong side.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“stand there at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow; I am the diamond glints on the snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain; I am the gentle autumn’s rain. When you awaken in the morning’s hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds encircled flight. I am the soft star that shines at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“As one of nine women in her class at Harvard, she was invited to a dinner at the home of the law school dean, where he asked each of the female students to explain why they were taking a slot from a deserving man.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“Confirmation hearings were not televised.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“I thought the Fourteenth Amendment applied to African Americans after the Civil War. How does it apply to women? Ruth spent an hour walking me through her argument, that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection of the law to all persons, and “women are persons,” as she put it.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“But the whole idea of reporting as an enterprise is to make people think. And when you think, really think, you should be a little torn.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“She would make a comment, and it would go entirely unremarked upon. Fifteen minutes later, a male justice would make the same point, and the response around the table would be “That’s a good idea.” The day-to-day dismissal of a smart woman’s voice—which so many women have experienced—happened even on the Supreme Court.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“You know, Nina, you can’t be there all the time. It’s not good for you and it’s not good for him. You need to go there, to the hospital. You need to make sure that he’s being properly cared for. You need to make your presence known to him. But you should only go for an hour. If you spend your whole day there, every day, you will lose who you are.” She paused and added, “He has to be able to come home, and you have to be able to really take care of him when he comes home, and you won’t be able to do that if you let yourself get sucked into this. You need to go back to work. It may not be your best work, but it will be good enough.” Of”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“it is quite an amazing thing to learn more and more about a ‘great man’ and to find that he really is great, that his beliefs are genuine, that his work is his life, that his soul is a gentle one, and that he has a rare gift of perception and tolerance of others, even when their beliefs threaten his.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“In the United States, banking and credit rules for women were not that different from the rules of conservatorship or guardianship that had prevailed in Victorian England; women almost universally needed the participation or the guarantee of a man. Not only that, but almost every time a woman brought a legal challenge—asking to be admitted to the bar in the state of Illinois, or to work as a bartender, or to be paid minimum wage, or to prevent her work hours from being restricted—the courts ruled against her, declaring that a woman’s primary job is to take care of the children and make hearth and home happy and safe. So, for a case to directly ask the questions why and on what grounds? was truly revolutionary.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“Widowhood after a long, debilitating disease is often a bit different. Perhaps the only good thing about having someone you’ve loved very dearly die after an extended illness is that you are ready for the death.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“But there’s another facet of these relationships, on all sides, that no one should confuse: objectivity and fairness are not the same thing. Nobody is purely objective. It is not possible. Justice Powell was shaped by what he had seen in World War II and by the personal devastation of his young messenger in Richmond. To pretend otherwise would be simply to pretend. What all of us are capable of is fairness.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“You made it. Not exactly magisterial, Shakespearean prose, but words to live by, from beginning to end.”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

“We’re talking about an effect upon millions of people and the way they live their everyday life and the way they’re treated in their neighborhood, in their schools, in their jobs,” he said. “If you are a conservative, how could you be against a relationship in which people who love one another, want to publicly state their vows… and engage in a household in which they are committed”
― Nina Totenberg, Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships