"I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions."

"End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I've always been drawn to them, but as I wrote my own, I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed, yet where there's so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary thing we have, and take for granted: hot showers, enough food, friends, routines."

"Sometimes I think I might not have written 'The Age of Miracles' if I hadn't grown up in California, if I hadn't been exposed to its very particular blend of beauty and disaster, of danger and denial."

"As an editor, I read Charlotte Rogan's amazing debut novel, 'The Lifeboat,' when it was still in manuscript. I read it in one night, and I really wanted my company to publish it, but we lost it to another house. It's such a wonderful combination of beautiful writing and suspenseful storytelling."

"My votes against the education bill and my votes against the Medicare bill got huge play at home."

"We have to judge politicians by their cumulative score. In one innings they make a great catch, in another they drop the ball. In one they score a home run, in another they strike out. But it is their cumulative batting average that we are interested in."

"My inspiration was the game itself, not any individual player in it."

"Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world."