Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" There's a female writer-performer thing going on in TV right now. "
Mindy Kaling
Right
Going
Female
Related Quotes:
" Catharsis isn't art. You can't rely on catharsis to get a laugh. Because guess what? People do laugh when something's shocking, but that is, to me, the absolute fakest of laughs. That's not something that sustains a television series, or a movie, or even 45 minutes of a stand-up set at Carolines. "
Mindy Kaling
Art
Laugh
People
" 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. "
Mindy Kaling
Perfect
You
Women
" When I was a little kid, I wrote this play about all these characters living in a haunted house. There was a witch who lived there, and a mummy. When they were all hassling him, this guy who bought the house - I can't believe I remember this - he said to them, 'Who's paying the mortgage on this haunted house?' I thought that was really funny. "
Mindy Kaling
Remember
Play
Funny
" If you've seen a photo of me from when I was a kid, I don't think anyone would have expected that going in front of the camera was something that I was going to do. I can't believe how little effort my parents put into making me seem like an appealing little girl. "
Mindy Kaling
Girl
Effort
Believe
" I have an underdog spirit in me, and now it feels weird to kind of get my own way more often than not. "
Mindy Kaling
Underdog
Weird
Spirit
" Growing up, I remember my parents feeling a little wary of 'The Simpsons.' This was the late eighties, and there was a wave of articles about TV shows that were bad for America. Then we all started watching it and loved it. "
Mindy Kaling
Remember
Parents
Growing Up
" It would be disingenuous of me to blanket-ly love everything a woman has produced simply to make a statement that we're all in this together. No. We're in Hollywood trying to be competitive, and get numbers, have our eyes on the Nielsens and things like that. "
Mindy Kaling
Woman
Love
Together
" People take things at face value on social media. Earnestness is the assumption. "
Mindy Kaling
Face
Media
Value
" The Tweets that I have written that are most popular are the ones that are the kind of universal girly concerns and observations. "
Mindy Kaling
Universal
Girly
Kind
" When people call me either a girl crush or their best friend, like, the best friend they want, that's, to me, the best compliment anyone could ever give me. "
Mindy Kaling
Girl
Best
People
" I am always surprised at what movie studios think people will want to see. I'm even more surprised at how often they are correct. "
Mindy Kaling
I Am
People
See
" I love 'The Office.' I'm in the premiere, and I'm maybe gonna shoot another episode this season, but I've been there since the very beginning, so when I found out this is the last year - I am a good Asian kid who was an A student - I wish I could be there to the end to see things through. "
Mindy Kaling
Good
Beginning
End
" On 'The Office,' so much of the show is about disguising your true feelings and your romantic feelings because it was a mock documentary. "
Mindy Kaling
Feelings
Show
True
" Live performance really terrifies me. I haven't done it, really, in years. I think that's why I retired from my brief career in stand-up. "
Mindy Kaling
Me
Performance
Career
" 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. "
Mindy Kaling
Kind
Skin
Woman
" I love talking about clothes with women; it's like a code because women dress for women. "
Mindy Kaling
Clothes
Dress
Love
" Almost every college playwright or sketch or improv comedian was sort of aware of Christopher Durang - even kids in high school. His short plays were so accessible to younger people and I think that was inspirational to me. "
Mindy Kaling
College
Inspirational
People
" I was always a silent comedy nerd. I would stay up late and sneak downstairs to watch 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Kids in the Hall,' and things like that. Very early on, my parents realized that I was not going to be an engineer or a doctor. I just don't have those inclinations, at all. "
Mindy Kaling
Night
Saturday
Doctor
" 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. "
Mindy Kaling
Say
You
Personality
" 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. "
Mindy Kaling
Speak
You
Woman
" Anyone who's lost someone to cancer will say this, that you have to struggle to try to remember the person before the diagnosis happened, because they really do change - as anyone would change. "
Mindy Kaling
Lost
Change
Remember
" My relationship with my mom is really the single most profound relationship that I've ever had in my life. "
Mindy Kaling
My Life
Single
Mom
" I try not to put anything political on the forefront of what I'm trying to do creatively. At the same time, I do think it's wonderful when I hear people say that it's inspirational that I'm an Indian woman on camera. My life is very diverse, and my friends are a diverse group of people. "
Mindy Kaling
People
Woman
Time
" I was obsessed with being popular in high school and never achieved it. There's photos from our high school musicals, and I'm comically in the deep background, wearing a beggar's costume. "
Mindy Kaling
Deep
School
High
" When men hear women want a commitment, they think it means commitment to a romantic relationship, but that's not it. It's a commitment to not floating around anymore. I want a guy who is entrenched in his own life. Entrenched is awesome. "
Mindy Kaling
Life
Women
Relationship
" I, like most women, I dress for other women, I think. If I was going to dress for men, I think in general I would be just wearing, like, a fitted black T-shirt and tight jeans every day. "
Mindy Kaling
Men
Dress
Day
" I fall into that nebulous, quote-unquote, normal American woman size that legions of fashion stylists detest. For the record, I'm a size 8 - this week, anyway. Many stylists hate that size because I think to them, it shows that I lack the discipline to be an ascetic; or the confident, sassy abandon to be a total fatty hedonist. "
Mindy Kaling
Think
Discipline
Woman
" As a kid, I always loved serialized books. It's the reason why people love 'Harry Potter.' Serialization is amazing. It works in television. It works in film and it works in books. Especially when you're a young kid, you get attached to these characters. "
Mindy Kaling
Young
Amazing
You
" Sometimes I eavesdrop on people. I could rationalize it - oh, this is good anthropological research for characters I'm writing - but it's basically just nosiness. It also helps me gauge where I'm at: Am I normal? "
Mindy Kaling
Oh
Writing
Me
" People don't want to listen to a celebrity tweeting about their charities and shows. That's why comedy writers do well - we put out little funny ideas. "
Mindy Kaling
Listen
People
Ideas