- Professor Freund: A court ought not be affected by the weather of the day, but will be by the climate of the era.
- [from trailer, in courtroom]
- Judge Doyle: The word 'woman' does not appear even once in the US Constitution.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Nor does the word 'freedom,' Your Honor.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: [testifying before the Tenth District Court] We're not asking you to change the country. That's already happened without any court's permission. We're asking you to protect the right of the country to change.
- Erwin Griswold: I'm pleased you found a use for your Harvard education.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Actually, what I'm doing now, I learned at Columbia.
- Jane Ginsburg: Just because you lost a hundred years before you started is no reason not to try to win.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Jane, that was very wise.
- Jane Ginsburg: You know who said it first? Atticus Finch.
- Erwin Griswold: [condescendingly] Let us go around the table, and each of you ladies report who you are, where you're from, and why you're occupying a place at Harvard that could have gone to a man.
- Martin Ginsburg: Freund was talking about Brown v. the board of Education. That's a "once in a generation" case.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Yeah, we're the next generation.
- Dorothy Kenyon: You found a bachelor taking care of his mother at home. Judges will be repulsed by him.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Feeling anything is a start.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I want to convince the federal courts that those laws are unconstitutional.
- Charles Moritz: How do you do that?
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: One case at a time... starting with yours.
- Charles Moritz: So, I'm a guinea pig?
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: No sir. You're the man marching out ahead of the band, leading the way.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: If a federal court ruled that this law is unconstitutional, then it could become the precedent others refer to and build on. Men and women both. It.. it could topple the whole damn system of discrimination.
- [Martin laughs]
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: What?
- Martin Ginsburg: Nothing. I'm just thrilled at your newfound enthusiasm for tax law.
- Jane Ginsburg: So, would you like help taking apart your life's work, or... is that something you'd rather do by yourself?
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: [dictating] Section 214 draws a line solely on the basis of sex.
- [typewriter clinks]