There are many teenage vampire books you could have purchased instead. I'm grateful you made this choice.

I am a super-confident writer, and as a joke writer and as an actress, I'm like, 'I want to go head-to-head with every person.' I am an Indian woman and I'm a kind of double minority in this world.

My parents were supportive of my creativity but did not have a lot of patience for whimsy with zero production value. They had stuff to do.

Those who are saying it's possible [to balance family and business] are often in a little bit of a rarefied place where they also have the money to do that. It's not quite such an easy stance to take when you don't have the same resources. I like to remind people that these are rich Manhattanites and to keep an eye on the fact that, especially with social media and these articles and these blogs, that that is not the reality for most women, unfortunately.

Once I saw Paris Hilton leaving a restaurant in Hollywood and the paparazzi cameras were all over her. It looked so unpleasant. It wasn't because she didn't look sensational - she was that perfect combination of fashionable and slutty - it was because the paparazzi guys were shouting these insanely rude and intrusive questions at her. Like, asking her who she was sleeping with and stuff. I was kind of interested in the answer, so I was glad they asked, but it was still gross.

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.

I was just this chubby little Indian kid who looked like a nerd. I didn't have a ton of academic skills. It wasn't until I was in high school that I was like, "I guess I like writing dialogue." So that's how I got into it.