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.

I have a personality defect where I refuse to see myself as an underdog.

That's what she said.

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 feel lucky because I was a nerd, which I talk about in the book, but I had academic success, so through that, because that's what my parents put a great deal of value on, I had a great childhood because I sort of fulfilled the expectations of being good at school.

I'm not married, I frequently use my debit card to buy things that cost less than three dollars, and my bedroom is so untidy it looks like vandals ransacked the Anthropologie sale section. I'm kind of a mess.

That’s the one nice thing about being a dork about men: you can sometimes play it off as restrained and classy.