"Will some reporter, or some Republican on the Sunday shows, please ask why tax cuts raid the non-existent Social Security Trust Fund but all the Democrats' new spending doesn't? Will someone please ask that?"

"I know it when I don't know it. Sometimes I know it when I don't think I know it. I need to trust myself in these moments, these rare moments of self-doubt."

"There's a void of leadership in a lot of Washington. I think one of the reasons why there's so much angst across the country."

"Obama's health care plan will be written by a committee whose head, John Conyers, says he doesn't understand it. It'll be passed by Congress that has not read it, signed by a president who smokes, funded by a Treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke. What could possibly go wrong?"

"It is a essential truth that do not wait for favorable winds; take the oars and row toward your horizon."

"It is greed to do all the talking but not to want to listen at all."

"I do see myself as someone who has a lot of story ideas."

"For each book, I do end up making a kind of playlist to fit the characters."