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As My Mom Has Said, When One Person Is Unhappy, It Usually Means Two People Are Unhappy But That One Has Not Come To Terms With It Yet.

-Mindy Kaling

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As My Mom Has

Mindy Kaling

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As My Mom Has Said, When One Person Is Unhappy, It Usually Means Two People Are Unhappy But That One Has Not Come To Terms With It Yet.

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The Funniest Racism Is The Racism Between Minorities. It's Something You Don't See Dramatized, But Almost Every Minority I Know Who's My Age, They Have These Funny Stories About Their Parents Stereotyping Other Minorities.

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It Makes Me Cry Because It Means That Fewer And Fewer People Are Believing It's Cool To Want What I Want, Which Is To Be Married And Have Kids And Love Each Other In A Monogamous, Long-lasting Relationship.

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I Didn't Completely Forget How To Be Nice Or Feminine Because I Have A Career.

Truthfully, I Guess I Would Like To Be Remembered As A Great Writer And A Kind Person. I Wouldn't Mind If An Expensive Bag Were Named After Me, Like Jane Birkin.

If I Gave My Mother A Knitted Scarf She'd Be Worried I Was Wasting My Time Doing Stupid Stuff Like Knitting Instead Of School Work. Presenting A Homemade Knitted Object To My Parents Was Actually Like Handing Them A Detailed Backlog Of My Idleness.

Is This A Generation Of Orphans Who Are Going To The Improv To Do Stand-up?

If You Are Going To Ask Your Crush For Their Phone Number, You Are One Of The Small Group Of Women I Am So Jealous Of.

I Don't Consider Myself A Fashion Person, I Consider Myself A Shopping Person. As A Person Who Has Girlie Interests And A Little Bit Of Disposable Income.

I Have A Great Job Writing For “the Office,” But, Really, All Television Writers Do Is Dream Of One Day Writing Movies. I’ll Put It This Way: At The Oscars The Most Famous Person In The Room Is, Like, Angelina Jolie. At The Emmys The Huge Exciting Celebrity Is Bethenny Frankel. You Get What I Mean.

I Want A Schedule-keeping, Waking-up-early, Wallet-carrying, Picture-hanging Man. I Don't Care If He Takes Prescription Drugs For Cholesterol Or Hair Loss.

I Found It To Be Smooth Sailing - 100 Percent Smooth Sailing My Whole Career.

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Fast Food Is Hugely Important In The Life Of A Comedy Writer. All We Do Is Order In, And What We're Going To Eat Is Hotly Debated.

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I Just Have My Characters Say My Controversial Opinions And Then Hide Behind Them.

Twitter Is So Short, It's Safe. I Don't Want My Bosses To Be Like, 'hey, Your Script Is Due And We Saw You Wrote Four Blog Pages.'

What I'd Really Like To Write Is A Romantic Comedy. This Is My Favorite Kind Of Movie. I Feel Almost Embarrassed Revealing This, Because The Genre Has Been So Degraded In The Past Twenty Years That Saying You Like Romantic Comedies Is Essentially An Admission Of Mild Stupidity.

All I Want To Do Is Be A Gay Icon. I Was Reading Lady Gaga's Twitter, Because She Has Like 12 Million Followers, Or Something Like That. I Feel Like She Has Fans, Gay, Straight, Bi, Who Would Throw Themselves Off A Building For Her.

There Is A Lot Of Catarsis That Passes Itself Off As Art Or Comedy And I'm Kind Of Critical Of That. I Think That Just Because You Bare Your Soul Or Underwear Or Private Moments It Doesn't , Or Necessarily Make For Entertainment, Or Good Writing, Or Funny Writing.

When Smart People Are Nice, It's Always Terrifying, Because I Know They're Taking In Everything And Thinking All Kinds Of Smart And Potentially Judgmental Things.

So I’m Into Men Now, Even Though They Can Be Frightening. I Want A Schedule-keeping, Waking-up-early, Wallet-carrying, Non-velcro-shoe-wearing Man.

I Have A Goofy Side That Impacts My Clothing A Lot. To That End, I Love Witty, Colorful, Prints.

If I Could Make A Device Where People Could Just Intuit Everything You Are Thinking - A Little Cable You Plug Into, Like, A Usb Port, I Would Make A Billion Dollars.

I Don't Mind That If I Ever Star In Movies, They'll Likely Be Mine. That's Okay, Because My Great Role Models - Woody Allen, Even Tyler Perry, Who Is Actually One Of My Role Models, Even If That Seems Kind Of Strange - They Do That Themselves. And It's Great. They Build Empires, And They're Known As Having Their Own Voice. I Think It's 20 Times More Fun To Act On A Set Where I Feel The Freedom To Change The Dialogue.

If It Weren't For My Imagination, I Would Weigh Ten Thousand Pounds. This Is Because The Only Way I Am Able To Exercise Anymore Is Through A Long And Vivid Revenge Fantasy.

There Wasn't A Big Tradition Of Comedy At Dartmouth. More Than That, There Wasn't Really Anything Artsy Going On In Hanover, Or Even In New Hampshire. The Cool Thing About The School Is That There's Nothing For People To Watch, So If You Were To Do A Play Or A Sketch Or An Improv Troupe, It Was Always Packed. There's Nowhere Else For Anyone To Go. But There Was No Comedy.

I Have A Personality Defect Where I Sort Of Refuse To See Myself As An Underdog... It's Because Of My Parents. They Raised Me With The Entitlement Of A Tall, Blond, White Man.

I Stupidly Memorize My Credit Card And Use It About Thrice Weekly For Online Shopping. The Only Reason I Don't Bankrupt Myself Is That I Return About 75% Of What I Buy.

It Used To Be That You Had To Make Female Tv Characters Perfect So No One Would Be Offended By Your 'portrayal' Of Women. Even When I Started Out On 'the Office' Eight Years Ago, We Could Write Our Male Characters Funny And Flawed, But Not The Women. And Now, Thankfully, It's Completely Different.

I Love That 'much Ado About Nothing,' Passionate, Smart Fighting. I Love Fighting With Guys, And That's Something That I Don't Get To See: Arguing At A High Level With A Member Of The Opposite Sex. That Didn't Really Happen That Much On 'the Office.' I Just Like That 'moonlighting,' Benedick-beatrice Type Of Thing.

I Have A Whole System Down For Returning Online Shopping: A Tape Gun, A Printer For Return Labels. That Has Replaced Traditional Window Shopping In My Life, As I've Gotten Busier.

Window Shopping

I Think References, Where They Fit Organically, Are Great. It's Great To Do A Show That's Real And Relatable, And So Much Of What Is Real, Is Using Real Things And Instances That Are Specific. Specificity Is The Best Tool You Can Have, As A Writer.

There Are Many Teenage Vampire Books You Could Have Purchased Instead. I'm Grateful You Made This Choice.

Besides, Who Wants To Read About Success, Anyway? Successful Serial Murderers, Maybe.

That's What She Said.

When You Only Do 10 Episodes For A Final Season, Every Character And All Of Her Interactions In Every Storyline Have So Much More Import Because It's The Last Time We're Going To Do It. It's Been Really Helpful Saying, "ok, Where Do We Want Each Of These Characters To End?" We Have 10 Episodes To Do It And Working Backward From That, I Kind Of Envy My Friends Who Have Always Been On A Cable Network Because This Is Really That Great Benefit Of Doing It This Way.

The Internet Also Makes It Extraordinarily Difficult For Me To Focus. One Small Break To Look Up Exactly How Almond Milk Is Made, And Four Hours Later I'm Reading About The Donner Party And Texting All My Friends: Did You Guys Know About The Donner Party And How Messed Up That Was? Text Me Back So We Can Talk About It!

I Used To Forget That I Was An Indian Woman. I Would Even Forget That I Was A Woman. I Don't Think Of Myself As Bringing To The Table A Lot Of 'women's Issues.' I Don't Feel The Need To Write About Maternity. I Grew Up Thinking That The Talented People In Comedy Were Hard-joke Writers.

I Think As Humans, No One Remembers Their Successes, Everyone Just Remembers Their Failures.

I Don't Want To Hear About The Endless Struggles To Keep Sex Exciting, Or The Work It Takes To Plan A Date Night. I Want To Hear That You Guys Watch Every Episode Of The Bachelorette Together In Secret Shame, Or That One Got The Other Hooked On Breaking Bad And If Either Watches It Without The Other, They're Dead Meat. I Want To See You Guys High-five Each Other Like Teammates On A Recreational Softball Team You Both Do For Fun.

I'm An A Student. I'm Addicted To Feedback, And I Want To Please People. That's Sort Of How I've Gotten To Where I Am.

I Get So Worried About Girls With Body Image Stuff And I Feel Like I Have Been Able To Have A Fun Career And Be An On-camera Talent And Be Someone Who Has Boyfriends And Love Interests And Wears Nice Clothes And Those Kinds Of Things Without Having To Be An Emaciated Stick. And It Is Possible To Do It. In Life, You Don't Have To Be That Way And You Can Have A Great Life, A Fun Life, And A Fulfilling Love Life.

It Doesn't Help For You To Name A Character's First Name Be Mindy And Then Be Like, "i'm Nothing Like The Character."

I’m Adorable. I Look Like Keira Knightley Running Errands!

My Dad's Whole Family Is In Madras And I Was Born In America So We Didn't Have That Big Indian Community. I Don't Really Have Anything Interesting To Say About It. When I Talk About It People Are Like, 'meh, Let's Talk About Something Else.'

To Have A Complete Outfit Designed, For Me, Is Easier Than Trying To Find Pieces That Work Together.

Working Together

I Have Such A Rich Fantasy Life, I Can't Help It. I Do Make Up A Lot Of Romantic Stories In My Head.

I Love Talking About Clothes With Women; It's Like A Code Because Women Dress For Women.

Albums That Remind Me Of My Childhood Happiness Make Me Incredibly Sad Now.

Every Day, I Wake Up And I'm Like, "oh, I'm The Star Of My Own Show That Has My Name In It And I Get To Write It And Hire Actors That I've Loved For Such A Long Time!" It's Amazing!

I Always Wanted To Write, Even Before I Realized That There Was A Comedy Writers' World, Or What That Life Was Like. I Never Thought Of Myself, At Least As A Little Kid, In Terms Of Being The Onscreen Talent. I Always Thought It'd Be So Much Fun To Write Sketches And Be A Writer. Even As Little As 6 Or 7, That's What My Main Interest Was.

I'm Giving A Lot Of Opinions, But I Don't Give Any Advice. I'm 31 And I'm Not Married And Having Kids. I'm Five-foot-three. I Weigh, Like, 150 Pounds And I'm Not In This Position To Be Telling People How To Live.

As A Kid It's Adorable To Have A Gap In Your Teeth. But Then, Because Of The Shifting In My Mouth, I Started Whistling Through It, And As A 32-year-old Woman, Whistling While You Speak In Sort Of Annoying.

I Would Say That My Mother Is The Single Biggest Role Model In My Life, But That Term Doesn't Seem To Encompass Enough When I Use It About Her. She Was The Love Of My Life.

It's Really Sweet When People Tweet At Me And Say I'm Their Spirit Animal Or 'i Wish She Was My Best Friend,' Which Is The Nicest Compliment. For Me, It's Like, Doing Television Is So Personal Because You're In People's Homes, So The Fact That People Feel That Way Means So Much To Me.

I Was Just This Chubby Little Indian Kid Who Looked Like A Nerd. I Didn't Have A Ton Of Academic Skills. It Wasn't Until I Was In High School That I Was Like, "i Guess I Like Writing Dialogue." So That's How I Got Into It.

I Was Kind Of Unfriendly And Suspicious Of Everyone Around Me. I Didn't Talk Until I Was About 15. It's A Kind Of Famous Story At My House.

Why Wear White? It's Like, Forget About Dropping Something On It. I Don't Understand How Anybody Wears White.

As My Mom Has Said, When One Person Is Unhappy, It Usually Means Two People Are Unhappy But That One Has Not Come To Terms With It Yet.

Another Old Saying Is That Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold. But It Feels Best Served Piping Hot, Straight Out Of The Oven Of Outrage. My Opinion? Take Care Of Revenge Right Away.

I Just Want Ambitious Teenagers To Know It Is Totally Fine To Be Quite, Observant Kids. Besides Being A Delight To Your Parents, You Will Find You Have Plenty Of Time Later To Catch Up.

Because Confidence Is Like Respect; You Have To Earn It.

You Should Know I Disagree With A Lot Of Traditional Advice. For Instance, They Say The Best Revenge Is Living Well. I Say It’s Acid In The Face—who Will Love Them Now?

If I'm Going To Be A Mess, I Might As Well Be A Hot Mess, Right?

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