I've had designers say to my face, 'Oh, I want to dress you now that you're skinny.' And that's really rude.

I grew up looking for myself onscreen and never could find myself. And I believe that I am supposed to be Toula to show people that it's O.K. to be different.

I believe that there are moments in everyone's lives where a door flings open, and if you're terrified of what's on the other side, you must walk through it.

It was a sad process for me to become a mom, and a long process. I felt so embarrassed that I couldn't have a biological child.

I think it's almost easier to do a kissing scene with someone you don't know.

I had worked for ten years in theater; I had worked at Second City in Chicago. Then I got to Hollywood, and I was like, naively, 'Where's my pilot?'

I don't temper how I feel. I'm Greek. I've got emotions.

There are benefits to adopting a toddler. They can tell you what's wrong. And - everything we did with our daughter was a first. Her first tooth fairy. Santa.

I did go through a bit of a dark time during the years I was trying to be a mom. But I'm basically a very positive person.

I feel that the industry can be sliced into two categories - grateful actors and non-grateful actors.

On my daughter's first day of kindergarten, another mom said something that made me realize I had become my own Greek, suffocating mother. She said, 'Just think, in 13 years they'll leave us and go to college!' And I went, 'Gulp.'

I think there is a moment in every parent's life where we realize that we have lost ourselves a little bit. It's a moment of looking in the mirror and going, 'I need to put on some lipstick.'

I never card out a movie. You know how people will outline or card? I don't do that. I tend to start with an idea and go.

I think it's probably a universal experience that all parents think they're not hovering, but perhaps we all are.

We absolutely have to support our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. We just must. It's not fair that they don't get to live an authentic life.

You're as strong as the actors you're working with, your partners.

I believe that you will not get what you want unless you ask for it.

We must make choices that are outside of the familial expectations of us, or we'll just be repeating the mistakes. Our parents came here to give us better choices.

Women have to write for each other; we have to hire each other.

It's called show business for a reason. The theater owners want to make money, and understandably so.

Lately, I've been in meetings regarding a new script idea I have. A studio executive asked me to change the female lead to a male, because... 'Women don't go to movies.' Really?

I'm not proud of this, but I had a lot of misconceptions about American foster care. To me, foster care meant that a child would be placed with you, then taken away. I didn't want to go through all of that.

I was worried if you adopted a foster child, someone from the birth family could still come and take her back. I was afraid that any child in foster care might have suffered such trauma or neglect that she would be impossible to reach. I'm not proud of these fears. But I understand now when others ask me the same questions.

I'm a private person who doesn't relish making her personal life public.

Like most women, I thought it would be easy once I decided to start a family. I was surprised that Mother Nature kept poking me in the eye, saying, 'Nope, nope, nope.'

My favorite part of any playdate comes later when I get to carry my exhausted and sleeping daughter to the car. Is there anything more trusting than a sleeping child completely and utterly leaning into your body?

Every time I sign a contract, I donate something to charity and buy a piece of jewelry. Whether the movie gets made or not, it's a celebration.

I believe that if I come home from a stressful day on the set, I just have to leave it there.

I write through improvisation. I never card out a movie. You know how people will outline or card? I don't do that. I tend to start with an idea and go.

I was in a fertility situation publicly, so I disappeared. I was very satisfied just being to able to creatively express myself with writing. The white hot publicity that came from 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' was appreciated but not sought, so I was happy to walk away from it and then write.

I have always written from a personal place.

My husband is an only child of only child parents.

I think the goal is parity: I try to be pro-woman without being anti-man, and I hope and wish that men could do the same in that when they look at the screenplay, they say, 'Wait, wait, wait - is my daughter represented here, is my wife represented here? Is my sister represented?'

I started in Shakespeare. I'm classically trained, which, how hilarious is that? Then one night, I saw Second City and thought, 'Wow, that's what I want to do.' But I never thought it would morph into screenplay writing.

If you create a fun environment, people will take liberties and grow and expand. And then you'll get your final screenplay in my favorite style, which is 'tossed away' - as if the actor just thought of it.

You can spend an entire summer in Europe, and no one will ask you what you do for a living.

I love romance. I think our skin clears up and we're nicer when you are in love.

We would not have 'America's Funniest Home Videos' without drunk brides and grooms falling into cakes.

I'm only happy when people are eating.

My family knows everything about me. There are no secrets, which can be suffocating, but I also find comfort in it. You can always reach out an arm, and an aunty will be close by to tell you that your skirt is too short.

When I wanted to go away to college in Toronto, my dad said, 'You can't go.' When I got to Toronto, I bought a couch, and my dad cried for the whole weekend because, as my mum told me, 'Now you have furniture; he knows you are never coming back.'

The Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine, is in northwestern India near the Pakistani border, and it is a delightful place to contemplate the draw of faith.

Inequality causes problems by creating fissures in societies, leaving those at the bottom feeling marginalized or disenfranchised.

We all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We're in a relay race, relying on the financial and human capital of our parents and grandparents. Blacks were shackled for the early part of that relay race, and although many of the fetters have come off, whites have developed a huge lead.

The wilderness is healing, a therapy for the soul.

The greatest problem is not with flat-out white racists, but rather with the far larger number of Americans who believe intellectually in racial equality but are quietly oblivious to injustice around them.

Why are fanatics so terrified of girls' education? Because there's no force more powerful to transform a society. The greatest threat to extremism isn't drones firing missiles, but girls reading books.

Our world is enriched when coders and marketers dazzle us with smartphones and tablets, but, by themselves, they are just slabs. It is the music, essays, entertainment and provocations that they access, spawned by the humanities, that animate them - and us.

I've always been interested in public health approaches because it seems to me we have this yearning for silver bullets, and that is not in fact how change comes about. Change comes through silver buckshot - a lot of little things that achieve results. That's a classic public health approach.

I'm sometimes embarrassed by how clinical I can become when I'm out reporting.