Kristin Gore

“I consciously decided to make both 'Sammy's Hill' and 'Sammy's House' more of a warm satire and not go the route of writing a dark and bitter book about D.C.”

“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.”

“My dad has a dry, deadpan sense of humor, and my mom has an unexpected, wacky take on things. They really encouraged laughing at ourselves and the weirdness of situations that come up growing up in politics.”

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

“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 don't really go into labels or an in-depth discussion of different value systems because for me, it's sort of the truth of the situation in D.C. Certainly, in my fictional depiction of it, there are decent, shameless people on both sides at every level.”

“I had lesser friends who would pretend to be interested in a night of catching up and then morph into giggly backstabbers at the first whiff of Polo Aftershave--woman who were lightning fast with the put-down joke or dismissive wave, whatever it took to seem more pretty or witty or larger chested to the nighly swarm of male barflies.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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