Hi, this is Dahlia Lithwick, and this past week I was lucky enough to have a chance to talk to Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court.

It was part of Slate's 80 over 80 feature, and you can take a look at the whole package.

It's amazing at slate.com

slash 80 over 80 from today on. The interview is not a profile of Justice Breyer's jurisprudence

per se, but in keeping with the larger 80 over 80 theme, it's a really precious look at how

life is going for one of, I think, the most important octogenarians in the land, how he's managing in COVID times, what remote work is like for him, the value of cooperation, the value of experience, and some of the dangers of seeking too much credit.

It was an amazing, kind of affirming conversation.

Here's a little snippet.

Are there things that you would tell your 30-year-old self to do differently if you could go back or just tell your grandchildren?

What I say to them, what I say to them is what I think,

one of the one of the one or two best things that I learned from Senator Kennedy

and I really follow it.

I try to.

I try to.

And he certainly tried to.

First of all, the best is the enemy of the good. He didn't make that up.

But if you have a choice between, you know, achieving 20 or 30% of what you'd like, on the one hand,

or being the hero of all your friends, On the other hand, choose the first.

We're not here just to see, to make speeches.

And the second thing, which I think is really a great practical value, is don't worry about credit.

Credit is a weapon. You give the other person the credit. When you disagree with someone, we talk and talk politely, and you go on and eventually, and it happens

almost always. They'll say something you agree with. And then he would say, or you can say, let's work with that.

...