Twinkle Khanna

“Standing in front of our hallway mirror, I am practising a few poses - one leg artfully bent, the opposite shoulder up - when the man of the house strides in and decides to share: a) I look like I have dislocated my shoulder and b) Has anyone ever told me I strongly resemble Tom Cruise?”

“By the time I was in my teens, I was reading science fiction. I had this maternal uncle who had cartons of books. It's important to read because you have to fill your head with words.”

“Humour has to have a huge nugget of truth to be funny. You cannot laugh at something unbelievable. Whenever I say something on a lighter note, I am basically unwrapping the truth from a different perspective, and that makes it funny.”

“I have always been immersed in a world filled with words, earlier as a reader and now, finally, as both a reader and a writer.”

“I am living in the world that I always dreamed of. I am still not living in a world where you can teleport matter from one place to another just by atoms. We haven't reached there yet.”

“My fashion cues come from my work, not the ramps of the world. I just keep working with so much colour, texture and structure, it rubs off!”

“For all the oddballs and misfits out there, eventually, if you just follow your path, you will reach somewhere no one else has. You are uniquely meant to do something that only you can do.”

“I remember joining a boarding school in the sixth grade. I was lazy, complacent, and fat. Suddenly, I realised that I had to fend for myself. That's when I discovered this drive within myself. For the first time, I ranked first in class, which was a miracle in itself. However, it didn't matter to my family.”

“Chiki Sarkar edited 'Mrs Funnybones,' and she is a ruthless but kind editor to work with. The only lesson I learnt during this process was to say, 'Yes, Prime Minister,' and re-write.”

“Sometimes it is okay to have some chocolates and ice-creams. We all have those days sitting in front of the TV and have those. But you have to have the balance.”

“'Mrs Funnybones' is based and structured around my columns, and it's about how a modern woman looks at India and how India looks right back at her. Since I have a weakness for illustrations, there are also a few funny illustrations in there as well.”

“To me, it felt that if I give up my name, I am also sending a message to my children, saying my name was not important enough as your father's; I am not as important as your father. That is a message we are passing down generation after generation without realising.”

“Writing is a way of drifting within my own mind: almost a solitary process, so to speak.”

“I've had my nose in a book my whole life. I never thought it would be useful, but it is now. What's really nice is that I don't have a photographic memory, so words get blurred, thoughts get mixed up, and they come out as something new.”

“'If The Weather Permits' was closer to my heart because it was a woman closer to my age, with a contemporary background like mine. I felt for that character. I've seen so many women like that - smart women who are a wreck when it comes to their emotional lives.”

“People feel feminists are aggressive, men-hating women with a little moustache. I think it's got a bad reputation because when feminism came into being, we were facing so much opposition that we had to be strident and aggressive.”

“'Barsaat' was a wonderful experience, but it took a long time in the making, and that got very tedious.”

“I love Twitter. Here, I get pieces of information quickly, and I also get myriad viewpoints rather than a one-sided view from a particular newspaper. Here, I have got a topic and 11 viewpoints, and I can judge for myself.”

“Relish being an oddball: Well-behaved, well-adjusted people are hopeless storytellers and, honestly, terribly boring.”

“Read everything you can get your hands on: Programme your mind to read all the time and everywhere - even in the bathroom; skim through the lines printed on the back of shampoo bottles and sanitary napkin packets.”