11 Times She Uttered Pure Truth (Photos) The Hollywood Reporter

Publish date: 2024-06-15

Best Mindy Kaling Quotes: 11 Times She Uttered Pure Truth (Photos) – The Hollywood Reporter

Pioneer Perspective
"I know why people are interested and I know why people want me to speak about it," she told NPR's Morning Edition of breaking boundaries onscreen. "But I sort of refuse to be an outsider, even though I know that I very much look like one to a lot of people, and I refuse to view myself in such terms."
High School Advice
"Teenage girls, please don’t worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete," Kaling wrote in her first book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?. "Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind of pitiful, like some babbling old Tennessee Williams character with nothing else going on in her current life. What I’ve noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it’s so wonderfully fair."
Categorizing for Competition
"I never want to be called the funniest Indian female comedian that exists," Kaling told New York magazine in 2012. "I feel like I can go head-to-head with the best white, male comedy writers that are out there. Why would I want to self-categorize myself into a smaller group than I’m able to compete in?"
Achieving Goals
"Girls face so many challenges — people are constantly telling them they can't do things, they can't be funny, they can't run the companies, but my advice is just not to focus on anyone telling you that you can't do anything, or politics in your situation," she said on AOL's Build Speaker Series. "Just think about your art, that thing you're gonna do. … All the white men who are doing the same thing, are not [worrying about others' opinions]; they're just getting better and better and better at their jobs."
Female Friendships
"It's hard to make friends as an adult woman. … In LA, the only people you meet are women in your spin class. And you have to wonder, if a woman seeks you out at spin class, you wonder what the motivations are! But you're so desperate for friends!" she confessed at BookCon. "It's much harder to find someone you want to talk to than a man you want to sleep with. … The only thing I want to do in the next five years is make a good friend."
East vs. West
"The main difference between LA and New York is that in LA if you're impatient you're the villain and in New York you're the hero," the prolific Twitter user noted in 2011.
Worry-Free Future
"A lot of you will become the quiet heroes of our country — however, those of you who go on to work for Big Pharma or Philip Morris, you will be the loud antiheroes, and someone is certain to make an AMC series glamorizing you, so congratulations," Kaling told Harvard Law School graduates. "But basically, either way, you can't go wrong."
Communication Skills
As Kelly Kapoor said on The Office, "I don't talk trash; I talk smack. They're totally different. Trash talk is all hypothetical, like, 'Your mama's so far, she could eat the Internet.' But smack talk is happening like right now, like, 'You're ugly and I know it for a fact 'cause I got the evidence right there.'"
Being Authentic
"Have you guys ever completely lied about your abilities?" she asked her fellow comedy actresses at The Hollywood Reporter's roundtable. "When I was still in New York, I auditioned for this Bollywood musical. I was like, 'Oh, I'm going to clean up. How many Indian girls are there?" I said I could sing and I could dance — neither of which I can do — and I sang, 'Somewhere Out There,' which anybody sounds good singing, and then I had to go to the dance part of it. And of course, it then ended up a huge embarrassment."
Home Is Happiness
Mindy Lahiri memorably noted on The Mindy Project, "My apartment is the only place that I feel safe right now. I have food. I have alcohol. I have 600 channels. And none of them want to hurt me."
Self-Acceptance
"I figure if I'm gonna be a mess, I might as well be a hot mess," said Mindy Lahiri on The Mindy Project.