Mindy Kaling Quotes

I have never regretted erring on the side of withholding information. ~ Mindy Kaling

When I watch roasts, I actually feel physically uncomfortable, like when I see a crow feast on a squirrel that has been hit by a car buy has not stopped moving yet. ~ Mindy Kaling

Something that's happened recently is that I don't beat myself up about stuff. ~ Mindy Kaling

One of the unexpected and wonderfully fair things I have learned in my career is that if Hollywood were filled just with perfect-looking people, then soap operas would be the most-watched things in the world. But they're not. Looks are great, but they're not compelling enough. I've noticed that successful actors with long careers are usually talented actors with charismatic screen presences, and all of them exude one thing: confidence. ~ Mindy Kaling

If you believe in yourself and work hard, your dreams will come true.
Well ... I guess the people who work hard whose dreams don't come true don't get to write books about it, so we never really find out what happens to them. So ...
If you believe in yourself and work hard, you have a fighting shot at having your dreams come true. ~ Mindy Kaling

That's my advice to people. You can't get hung up on thinking, "Am I the victim in this situation?" No, I'm in charge of it. ~ Mindy Kaling

People get scared when you try to do something, especially when it looks like you're succeeding. People do not get scared when you're failing. It calms them. But when you're winning, it makes them feel like they're losing or, worse yet, that maybe they should've tried to do something too, but now it's too late. And since they didn't, they want to stop you. You can't let them. ~ Mindy Kaling

A not 100-percent-perfect-looking-in-every-way female? You might as well film a dead squid decaying on a beach somewhere for two hours. ~ Mindy Kaling

I would love if gay men responded to me. All I want is for many gay men to dress up as me for Halloween. ~ Mindy Kaling

I feel the same way about clothes as I do about food. I want everything, ~ Mindy Kaling

7. Have one great cologne that's not from the drugstore. Just one. Wear very little of it, all the time. I cannot tell you how sexy it is to be enveloped in a hug by a man whose smell you remember. Then, anytime I smell that cologne, I think of you. ~ Mindy Kaling

No pasta. I'm serious. I will climb out of my coffin if anyone brings a baked ziti. ~ Mindy Kaling

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. ~ Mindy Kaling

the Yankees were playing my hometown Red Sox on TV and I lost my cool at a guy who was loudly dissing them. I yelled, "Derek Jeter is baseball's Hitler!" This was in New York City. In a room full of Jewish sports fans. I don't even really like baseball that much! I have problems. ~ Mindy Kaling

We never needed best friend gear because I guess with real friends you don't have to make it official. It just is. ~ Mindy Kaling

We clung to each other with blind loyalty, like Lord Voldemort and his snake, Nagini. I, of course, was Nagini. If you messed with one of us, you knew you messed with both of us, and Voldemort was going to cast a murder spell on you, or Nagini was going to chomp on your jugular. ~ Mindy Kaling

Just as long as it pays enough to give me the option to go back to work part-time if I decide to pursue my hobby professionally, which is photographing cool manicures for Instagram. ~ Mindy Kaling

We always think of a diet with a big groan. But I think diets are fun. I think it is an American pastime for a lot of women. ~ Mindy Kaling

A honeymoon is, after all, a sex vacation you're giving yourself after a massive party in your honor. ~ Mindy Kaling

I've attended some pretty glamorous events over the years, like the Costume Ball at the Met, the Golden Globes, and the Vanity Fair Oscar party. They are usually held at distinguished cultural institutions like the Met or the Annenberg Center - always beautiful spaces that are home to priceless works of art. The first thing they do when a Hollywood party rents out the place is push all the art to the corner so it doesn't get in the way. They have to do that so there's room for a red carpet, a bar, a prime rib carving station, a photo booth, and, for some reason, an Acura parked inside, in the middle of the party floor. There's always a parked Acura at every major Hollywood party. Who ~ Mindy Kaling

It's blue and it's wailing because its little body is cold. The only people who think it's beautiful are its parents, and the doctor is just happy it's alive. And none of that is funny. ~ Mindy Kaling

There's obviously instances where I perceive sexism in my job ... I think that the sort of sexism that I see has been one that's a little bit like a gentler form of sexism, but still a little bit debilitating, which is that when, as a producer and a writer, whether it was at The Office or [at The Mindy Project], if I make a decision, it'll still seem like it's up for debate. ~ Mindy Kaling

I hate gowns. It's a rare gown indeed that is cool. Most are elegant or whatever, a quality I don't put a big premium on. ~ Mindy Kaling

In terms of my Indianness, I try not to rely on it nor deny it. When it comes up organically in my writing, we can address it. About five years ago, we wrote this episode of 'The Office,' called 'Diwali,' which seemed like an organic way of using it. ~ Mindy Kaling

All women love Colin Firth: Mr. Darcy, Mark Darcy, George VI - at this point he could play the Craigslist Killer and people would be like, 'Oh my God, the Craigslist Killer has the most boyish smile! ~ Mindy Kaling

All of a sudden Mindy [Kaling] was writing on The Office and had sold a TV show. When we'd try to write shows, we'd jokingly call the word documents "Hit Show." We just couldn't crack the code. ~ Jake M. Johnson

Maybe the point is that any marriage is work, but you may as well pick work that you like. ~ Mindy Kaling

The chorus of "Jack and Diane" is: Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone. Are you kidding me? The thrill of living was high school? Come on, Mr. Cougar Mellencamp. Get a life. ~ Mindy Kaling

They gave you that trophy so you wouldn't feel bad, not because you deserved it. You should know the difference. ~ Mindy Kaling

When you are entitled, you are the most insufferable person ever. If you are entitled and hardworking, which I am, you are still pretty insufferable, but at least you somewhat earned your entitled behavior. ~ Mindy Kaling

Why is everyone trying to tell me that when you get older it gets better? ~ Mindy Kaling

No, that is boring. If people want to see medical stuff they should watch ER. ~ Mindy Kaling

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. ~ Mindy Kaling

You always want to keep your look clean and elegant, but you don't have to do the safe black-dress route. Have some fun! Wear something colorful with a hint of sparkle. ~ Mindy Kaling

Find it incredible impossible not to cry when I hear Stevie Nicks's "Landslide," especially the lyric: "I've been afraid of changing, because I've built my life around you." I think a good test to see if a human is actually a robot/android/cylon is to have them listen to this song lyric and study their reaction. If they don't cry, you should stab them through the heart. You will find a fusebox. ~ Mindy Kaling

That's because my show is on a major network and you can't show all that stuff, and also because my dad is alive and I would like to have lunch with him without feeling mired in dishonor. ~ Mindy Kaling

Our Klutz clangs into Stop signs while riding a bike, and knocks over giant displays of expensive fine china. Despite being five foot nine and weighing 110 pounds, she is basically like a drunk buffalo who has never been a part of human society. But Fred Tom loves her anyway. ~ Mindy Kaling

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. ~ Mindy Kaling

The result of my not caring so much about what I say allows me to care more about how I say it. P. 4 ~ Mindy Kaling

One good thing about New York is that most people function daily while in a low-grade depression. It's not like if you're in Los Angeles, where everyone's so actively working on cheerfulness and mental and physical health that if they sense you're down, they shun you. Also, all that sunshine is a cruel joke when you're depressed. In New York, even in your misery, you feel like you belong. ~ Mindy Kaling

Sometimes you like the idea of someone so much, you just want to do whatever it takes to make it work. ~ Mindy Kaling

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. ~ Mindy Kaling

I had these kind of unrealistic expectations that were fueled by romantic comedies, and it has both helped me and hurt me in many ways. It helped me because, in general, they've made me hopeful. I just figure things will eventually work out for me. But nobody is like any Tom Hanks character. Nobody is Hugh Grant. No one is Meg Ryan! ~ Mindy Kaling

The point is, it only traumatized me because I had the time to be traumatized. I want to be so famous and busy that I only ever find these insults amusing, and chuckle at them good-naturedly before I get on my private jet to be a UN Ambassador to Cameroon, or wherever. ~ Mindy Kaling

I had placed a lot of faith in Woody Allen's belief that 80 percent of success is just showing up. I said to myself: Are you serious? 80 percent? Sure, I can just show up. Here I am, New York! Give me a job! ~ Mindy Kaling

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

I guess when you go to business school you never turn business off. ~ Mindy Kaling

I am the kind of person that is drawn to colors against my will. ~ Mindy Kaling

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. ~ Mindy Kaling

I liked hanging out with my family! Later, when you're grown up, you realize you never get to hang out with your family. You pretty much have only eighteen years to spend with them full time, and that's it. So, yeah, it all added up to a happy, memorable time. Even though I was never a star. ~ Mindy Kaling

I don't read them; I just hit "accept." iTunes may own my ovaries, for all I know. ~ Mindy Kaling

The idealism and adorability of Rob Lowe and Bradley Whitford had made me long for a civic-minded beau who is constantly making long, important speeches and taking principled stands. ~ Mindy Kaling

As I got older, I got craftier and less obvious, but I've always put a lot of energy and effort into people liking me. That's why I've never understood the compliment "effortless." People love to say: "She just walked into the party, charming people with her effortless beauty." I don't understand that at all. What's so wrong with effort, anyway? It means you care. What about the girl who "walked into the party, her determination to please apparent on her eager face"? Sure, she might seem a little crazy, and, yes, maybe everything she says sounds like conversation starters she found on a website, but at least she's trying. Let's give her a shot! ~ Mindy Kaling

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.' ~ Mindy Kaling

Bribes and boy bands. That's all you need to be a babysitter. ~ Mindy Kaling

Skinny foodie, get away from me. ~ Mindy Kaling

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

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

I want you to picture me as a cute little anime character that popped out from behind a mushroom or something and landed in Hollywood. ~ Mindy Kaling

There is some pressure when you are a woman doing what I do that you must support all other women unconditionally, no matter what they're projecting, or writing, or producing, or putting forth as their art. I think that's equally arbitrary and random and unfair, and kind of sexist. The secretly sexist way. I have really high standards for what I think is funny. I have that for everything, and I think 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. ~ Mindy Kaling

If someone called me chubby, it would no longer be something that kept me up late at night. Being called fat is not like being called stupid or unfunny, which is the worst thing you could ever say to me. Do I envy Jennifer Hudson for being able to lose all that weight and look smokin' hot? Of course, yes. Do I sometimes look at Gisele Bundchen and wonder how awesome life would be if I never had to wear Spanx? Duh, of course. That's kind of the point of Gisele Bundchen. And maybe I will, once or twice, for a very short period of time. But on the list of things I want to do in my lifetime, that's not near the top. I mean, it's not near the bottom either. I'd say it's right above "Learn to drive a vespa," but several notches below "film a chase scene for a movie. ~ Mindy Kaling

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

It has come to the point where if I know I'm leaving a house with a man, I can factor in a bathroom visit or a phone call or both, and when I'm done, he'll almost be done tying his shoes. ~ Mindy Kaling

Learning about new hot sauces is the least expensive way to improve my quality of life. ~ Mindy Kaling

When I've acted, and it's not been something I've written or have had at least a hand in writing, I do think there is a controlling side of me that is frustrated by that. And I actually don't think that it's a bad thing, because if I'm going to be in movies, in large part they're going to be movies that I write. ~ Mindy Kaling

I always knew I wanted kids, but when my mom passed away I was like, 'I want a bunch of kids. I want three kids or four kids, and I want to have that relationship again.' I can't bring my mom back, but I can have children. ~ Mindy Kaling

I once heard that Quentin Tarantino, who I obviously love and think is a genius, says that there's no such thing as guilty pleasure, there's only pleasures. And I do love that idea, because I do think that there's a pretentiousness when people make a list of their favorite things. I like to live a life where I don't think of my pleasures as guilty pleasures. ~ Mindy Kaling

So things were coming together nicely for me to embark on a full-fledged depression. One good thing about New York is that most people function daily while in a low-grade depression. ~ Mindy Kaling

As a kid, I was curious but not remotely adventurous, if that makes sense. ~ Mindy Kaling

[ ... ]Frisbee people won't let it go. My theory is that this is because there's a huge overlap between people who are good at Frisbee and people who do Teach for America. ~ Mindy Kaling

Network executives usually have bad taste. It's either just a reflection of what market research tells them that normal people are into, or whatever their adolescent children are obsessed with. I have so often been on the receiving end of whatever powerful network executive's children are watching that week. That ~ Mindy Kaling

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. ~ Mindy Kaling

Of course, everyone wants to be mythologized in a great way. ~ Mindy Kaling

There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it. ~ Mindy Kaling

People seem to be having these awesome sex lives and I'm just trying to find a life partner to go apple picking with. What's wrong with me? ~ Mindy Kaling

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

Don't fall into the trap of thinking about politics in your workplace too much. Just work hard, be cheerful, ignore distractions. ~ Mindy Kaling

Listen, my body is attracted to your body but when you speak it makes my brain angry. ~ Mindy Kaling

A bunch of unearned trophies around the house would make me hooked on awards, which is bad in general, but especially bad if you don't deserve them. The whole experience made me want to win another trophy, but win it for actually doing something great. ~ Mindy Kaling

This book will take you two days to read. Did you even see the cover? It's mostly pink. If you're reading this book every night for months, something is not right. ~ Mindy Kaling

With no music to listen to, I just biked around in circles talking to myself like a kid on the cover of a Robert Cormier young adult novel, circling around puzzled Jewish families walking back to their cars. This is how I learned to ride a bike. ~ Mindy Kaling

Just bear a passing resemblance to a fictional romantic trope I like and I will love you forever. We're all just trying to find the Mark Darcy of our workplace, aren't we? ~ Mindy Kaling

When I have time to sit and reflect on the different situations that I face every day, I'll be able to speak more succinctly about the challenges as a woman. ~ Mindy Kaling

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. ~ Mindy Kaling

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. ~ Mindy Kaling

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

In junior high, there were a lot of really ugly guys who were popular because they made people laugh. I was like, "Wow, comedy is the great freer of hideous people." It was an incredibly liberating thing. If you ask a girl, "What do you want in a guy?" 99 percent are like, "I just want him to be funny." I thought, "If that applies to women, I'm set. ~ Mindy Kaling

My version of an Irish exit has an air of deception to it, because it includes my asking loudly, "Where's the bathroom?" and making theatrical looking-around gestures like a lost foreign tourist. But then, instead of finding the bathroom, I sneakily grab my coat and leave. ~ Mindy Kaling

The expectation that TV women need to be more likeable than men is bullshit and in need of a change. ~ Mindy Kaling

Directing is exhausting, but not for the actual directing part, when you say "Action!" and give creative notes. As a director, the exhausting part is that you are a professional answer-machine. ~ Mindy Kaling

I say if you love something, set it in a small cage and pester and smother it with love until it either loves you back or dies. ~ Mindy Kaling

Besides, who wants to read about success, anyway? Successful serial murderers, maybe. ~ Mindy Kaling

I have a goofy side that impacts my clothing a lot. To that end, I love witty, colorful, prints. ~ Mindy Kaling

I'm a role model now ... I want to be a better person because I don't want to disappoint those girls. I stop and think about my actions more. I tip great, I try not to swear too much, and I remember to thank people and be grateful. And all that stuff I do to appear' better has actually made me a better person. I wish I had always acted like I was a little bit famous. ~ Mindy Kaling

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. ~ Mindy Kaling

My dad is funny in his own way, and so is my brother, but in terms of legitimately making a lot of people laugh, that's my mom. I inherit my sense of comedy from her. ~ Mindy Kaling

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

Soul mates is what you aim for, but soup snakes is what you get sometimes. ~ Mindy Kaling

Why do all the men I know put their shoes on incredibly slowly? When I tie my shoelaces I can do it standing, and I'm out the door in about ten seconds. (Or, more often, I don't even tie my shoelaces. I slip my feet into my sneakers and tighten the laces in the car.) But with men, if they are putting on any kind of shoe (sneaker, Vans, dress shoe), it will take twenty times as long as when a woman does it. It has come to the point where if I know I'm leaving a house with a man, I can factor in a bathroom visit or a phone call or both, and when I'm done, he'll almost be done tying his shoes. There's a certain meticulousness that I notice with all guys when they put their shoes on. First of all, they sit down. I mean, they need to sit down to do it. Right there, it signals, "I'm going to be here for a while. Let's get settled in." I can put on a pair of hiking boots that have not even been laced yet while talking on my cell phone, without even leaning on a wall. ~ Mindy Kaling

I would be the first to admit that I have incredibly high, ambitious standards for my life and my career, and I've had those my entire life. It's something that was just instilled in me by my parents. ~ Mindy Kaling