“After writing for TV for a while, I got sort of fed up with all of the cancellations and the volatility in that industry. Also, you're always writing for someone else's character and story, and I really wanted to develop my own.”

“Any writing teacher tells you to write what you know, and for better or for worse, Washington is a world I know well.”

“From age 7 on, I wanted to be a writer.”

“I always wanted to be a writer, from being a little kid onwards. My dad and my mum both had phases when that was what they did.”

“I can't look at people's wrists. Something about the veins makes me weak. My siblings used to torture me with that because they knew it was the thing I couldn't handle. They would stick their wrists in my face.”

“I didn't realize I wanted to write about D.C. until after 2000. Even though I was a comedy writer, I stayed away from that subject on purpose. It took attaining some distance and perspective.”

“I love the satire and skewering of comedy writing.”

“I make things up for a living. It would be pretty boring to just fictionalize real people.”

“I was one of those dorky kids who'd wanted to go to Harvard since the fifth grade.”

“I was really nerdy. Compared with my sisters, I often felt like a boring person because I lived so much in my head and in books.”

“I'm allergic to caffeine. When I have it, my throat gets sore, and I get a rash.”

“I'm just grateful that my parents still love each other.”

“In actuality, 'Sammy's House' can and should be read as an entirely fictional comedy set in a fascinating political world.”

“In my free time, I'd written 'Sammy's Hill' - it had started out as a play. I just did it for myself.”

“It's all discipline and schedule for me. I mean, it's very easy to get distracted by the real world and things that intrude constantly, and it takes dedication to live totally in your head and be tuned out.”

“I've seen some version of 'An Inconvenient Truth' since I was born.”

“'Jitterbug Perfume' is one of my favorite books.”

“My parents were enthusiastic fans of 'Sammy's Hill.' But they think 'Sammy's House' is a better book.”

“Take it from me: I really love making things up, which is why I write fiction for a living.”

“The one thing I witnessed over and over were these pretty young people who would throw themselves into a cause larger than themselves and believe they could change the world.”

“The wrists, the Achilles' tendons, and the neck are some of the weakest points of the human body, so a lot of people have phobias about those things. I can't deal with the undersides of wrists.”

“There's this perception of D.C. as a boring town run by old white men, but in reality, there are incredibly young people in charge of really important things.”

“When I read books, I actually really love imagining whomever I want to in the character's role. I get such vivid pictures on my own that that is a big part of the experience for me.”

“When my father became vice president, I was a sophomore in high school. I'd do things like go on a run with my soccer team and purposely dodge the security van. Then my parents compromised with the Secret Service when I went to college. I just had a panic button in my dorm room, so if I pressed that, they'd be there within 2 or 3 minutes.”

“Whenever Congress was in session, we were in Washington. So four months out of the year we were in Tennessee and the rest of the time in Arlington, which is where my mom grew up. Then, of course, in 1992 we moved into the vice president's house in D.C. I was 15 then.”

“You think about D.C. as a boring stuffy place. That's kind of its image. But if you grow up in that, you see all these energetic, fun people and crazy stuff that happens behind the scenes that no one knows about.”