The Supreme Court, a literary exchange

"The past is never dead. It isn't even past." ~Chief Justice John Roberts, quoting Faulkner while dissenting in Obergefell v. Hodges (the marriage equality case),

suggesting...

"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." ~Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

"Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race." ~Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy

"What fresh hell is this?" ~Associate Justices Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito, in unison, entering from opposite directions

"What I'm trying to do is save your ass, gorgeous." ~Associate Justice Elena Kagan

"Hell is empty, and all the devils here." ~Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor

"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." ~Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, spurring his horse into a sulfurous pit in the heart of Rome

“I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” ~former Chief Justice William Rehnquist

"Words, words, words." ~Associate Justice Antonin Scalia

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy." ~Associate Justice emeritus John Paul Stevens

"Hell is other people." ~Associate Justice emeritus David Souter