Quotes from Mindy Kaling

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.

My relationship with my mom is really the single most profound relationship that I've ever had in my life.

Right now, I'm hankering for new adventures... Ninety percent of the time I'm having romantic-comedy fantasies in which I'm wearing little pencil skirts and hurrying down to the subway.

I have an underdog spirit in me, and now it feels weird to kind of get my own way more often than not.

Not to be weird, but I still have an ongoing relationship with my mom, even though she passed away, and I've been surprised at how much I've been able to convey to her. Now I sound like a total weirdo, but that's true.

People talk about mumblecore but I prefer bumblecore, hyper-realistic bee movies about how bees really are.

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.

Sometimes you just have to put on lip gloss and pretend to be psyched.

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.

Everyone should try to live their life like they'd like to be a role model.

I have the right to life, liberty and chicken wings.

There's a female writer-performer thing going on in TV right now.

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.

I feel like if I had my personality but was an OB/GYN, you would be psyched. You'd be like, 'My chatty, pop-culture-interested but plainspoken, wants-to-talk-about-clothes but serious-minded doctor.' I feel like I would clean up with patients. That's kind of a cocky thing to say.

There's the psychotic ambitious side of myself that wants a fashion line and my own network and be like a combination of Oprah and Gwen Stefani. And have a perfume. Definitely a perfume.

Comedy writers have the most fragile egos.

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 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.

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 have a thick skin, which comes from being a not-really-skinny, dark-skinned Indian woman. I haven't fit in every place, and so I'm kind of used to resistance.

I think I've always wanted to be a role model, and I think ... everyone should try to live their life like they'd like to be a role model. I think it's like the thing keeping me out of jail.

If I can muster up any allure in my life, at this stage, I wouldn't mind doing that.

What I've noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it's so wonderfully fair.

I went to Dartmouth College so simply by being an Indian-American woman, I was already so statistically interesting. And then the fact that I didn't want to do anything science-related, and I wanted to write comedy plays and act little bit - I mean, I became deeply interesting in college because of how rare that was.