From an extensive interview:

TOTENBERG: Ginsburg has learned to take one day at a time. Her work and the court are her passions now, along, of course, with opera, literature and modern art. The reason that she and other justices try so hard not to be partisan, she says, is really quite simple. The court’s only real currency is public confidence.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

BADER GINSBURG: The court has no troops at its command. It doesn’t have the power of the purse. And yet, time and again, when the court says something, people accept it. One example in the not-so-dim past was Bush v. Gore. I dissented from that decision. I thought it was unwise. A lot of people disagreed with it. And yet, the day after the court rendered its decision, there were no riots in the streets.

TOTENBERG: That, she says, is why the independence of the courts is so important in a democratic society.