On high school basketball:

“Everything I ever needed to know, I learned on the basketball court. And to this day, my right ankle is a knobby and misshapen thing, a daily reminder of pushing through pain.”

On why she never ran for the Legislature:

“I did not think I would do well in a place where you had to scratch disagreeable backs in order to secure a nameplate in the caucus.”

On support from mentor, former state Senate President Rick Halford, to run in 2006:

“Rick wasn’t an establishment Republican in the derogatory sense of the term, but he was definitely influential in the mainstream party. And he was the only person like that — a quasi-insider, who reached out and encouraged me to run.”

On Andrew Halcro, former GOP state representative who ran as an independent in the 2006 gubernatorial race:

“Halcro was a wealthy, effete young chap who had taken over his father’s local Avis Rent A Car, and he starred in his own car commercials. He would go on to host a short-lived local radio show while blogging throughout the day, all of which were major steps up from a previous job as our limo driver at Todd’s cousin’s wedding.”

On Lena Andree, Todd’s grandmother, who is Yup’ik:

“How many American women do you know who can weave a grass basket; sew squirrel skins into a garment and adorn it with intricate beadwork; haul a thousand salmon out of the ocean, get them to market in a sailboat, then take some home, fillet them, and serve them for dinner?”

On Juneau:

“I attributed part of the corruptions problem, besides the obvious self-dealing motives of politicians, to Juneau’s inaccessibility. Foreign tourists on cruise ships had better access to lawmakers in session than 80 percent of the citizens of the state had. That makes Juneau an island of sorts, isolating legislators and staff from the people who elected them.”

On her staff:

“I remembered reading a survey once that said most CEOs, if they had to do things over again, would hire back only 20 percent of their original staff. For me it was the opposite: I would rehire 80 percent of my great team of dedicated public servants, including my office administrative staff. “But the 20 percent on which I’d ask for a 'do-over,’ well, they were doozies.”

On former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan:

“The staff understood my agenda of fiscal conservatism and knew that to implement it, we’d have to work as a team. Only one cabinet member voiced criticism of the agenda to slow the growth of government, and he taught me another lesson about how difficult changing bureaucracy is when the team is divided.”

On meeting oil executives after being elected governor:

“I walked into those meetings with coffee in hand, cookies to serve our guests, and thought to myself, Hmmm. You just spent a year trying to kick my ass. I just spent a year trying to kick yours. And now we’re in this room together. Out loud I asked, “Want a cookie?”

On being initially approached by the McCain campaign about running for vice president:

“For some reason, when the call came at the State Fair, it didn’t come as a huge shock … I certainly didn’t think, Well, of course this would happen. But neither did I think, what an astonishing idea. It seemed more comfortable than that, like a natural progression. I’d known it was only a matter of time before others saw Alaska’s potential to contribute to America’s future.

On being questioned by the McCain campaign on her views of evolution:

“I believed in the evidence for microevoluation — that geologic and species change occurs incrementally over time. But I didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea. Or that human beings began as single-celled organisms that developed into monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees; I believed we came about through a random process, but were created by God.”

On the Katie Couric interview, in which she was asked what newspapers and magazines she reads:

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to — or, as some have ludicrously suggested, couldn’t — answer her question; it was that her condescension irritated me. It was as though she had suddenly stumbled upon a primitive newcomer from an undiscovered tribe.”

On the series of later-dismissed ethics complaints and public-records requests in the months leading to her resignation:

“... opponents filed many baseless ethics complaints and lawsuits against me. Combined with the [records requests], the sheer volume of paperwork and legally required responses brought the business of governing the State of Alaska to a grinding halt. Eventually, it overwhelmed us — and was obviously meant to … My approval ratings plummeted from nearly 90 percent to 56 percent during the one-sided public discourse over 'the governor’s ethics problems.’ Slowly and steadily, my record, my administration’s efforts, and my family’s reputation were shot to hell.”

On her relationship with Andree McLeod, who filed many of the ethics complaints that helped drive Palin out of office, before things turned heated:

“Andree, who had once listed her occupation as 'whistleblower’ on a candidate survey, was a too-frequent caller to my home. My kids dreaded hearing her voice, but the only way I could get anything done during her long, one-sided conversations was to put her on the speakerphone while I’d go on cooking dinner and washing dishes. She ranted in the background, dumping piles of compliments, complaints, and curses on my head.”

On rumors that she and Todd were divorcing:

“The day in sunny Texas when the divorce rumors were rampant in the tabloids, I watched Todd, tanned and shirtless, take the baby from my arms and walk him back to the ranch house so Trig could nap while I made calls. Seeing Todd’s blue eyes smiling, I chuckled. Dang, I thought. Divorce Todd? Have you seen Todd?”

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