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.

There are little Indian girls out there who look up to me, and I never want to belittle the honor of being an inspiration to them. But while I’m talking about why I’m so different, white male show runners get to talk about their art. I always get asked, ‘Where do you get your confidence?’ I think people are well meaning, but it’s pretty insulting. Because what it means to me is, ‘You, Mindy Kaling, have all the trappings of a very marginalized person. You’re not skinny, you’re not white, you’re a woman. Why on earth would you feel like you’re worth anything?’

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

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.

One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about.

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.