23 Quotes by Jed S. Rakoff

When I was a kid, and for many years after, I was your classic afraid-to-dance-type person.

The price of being a nice guy is too high - much too high - in terms of the system of justice.

One of the many things I like about baseball is how it combines individual talent and teamsmanship.

I have huge respect for Preet Bharara, a great U.S. Attorney by any measure. But even great men can make mistakes.

I don't have any respect for judges who arrive at the result first, and then try to figure out some way they can bend the law to reach their particular predilections.

I have a past of making a fool of myself.

If, in the name of combating terrorism, we so restrict our own freedom, have we not thereby lost part of the very battle we seek to win?

I admired Truman, among many other things, because he integrated the Army. I admired JFK because the very first civil rights legislation was passed at his insistence. JFK showed what you could do, though he was a deeply flawed person, as we all now know.

I was always attracted to taking a novel position, but one grounded in the materials I'd been given, not made up out of whole cloth.