Shonda Rhimes Quotes

#1. I don't think it ever occurred to me before how much and how often women are praised for displaying traits that basically render them invisible.

Shonda Rhimes

#2. Saying yes . . . saying yes is courage. Saying yes is the sun. Saying yes is life.

Shonda Rhimes

#3. There is victory in surrender.

Shonda Rhimes

#4. It's like surgery. You can't close the patient's chest until you've found the wound and operated on it. The problem is the open chest, the wound is the challenge and the YES is the operation. You

Shonda Rhimes

#5. The only limit to success is your own imagination.

Shonda Rhimes

#6. So when you negate someone's compliment, you are telling them they are wrong. You're telling them they wasted their time. You are questioning their taste and judgment. You

Shonda Rhimes

#7. I was baptized Catholic but I was Church of Oprah. If you are a person on

Shonda Rhimes

#8. Wonder Woman is not faking it. Wonder Woman means it. Wonder Woman is all swagger and badassery. Compliment

Shonda Rhimes

#9. You are not alone. You are seen. I am with you. You are not alone.

Shonda Rhimes

#10. #StopPretendingHashtagsAreTheSameAsDoingSomething

Shonda Rhimes

#11. Any actual parts of me, anything real, anything human, anything honest, I kept to myself. I was a very good girl. I did what everyone needed me to do. And

Shonda Rhimes

#12. Don't apologize. Don't explain. Don't ever feel less than. When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it.

Shonda Rhimes

#13. My memory is ever-so-slowly being replaced by blank spaces. The details of my life are disappearing. The paintings are being stolen off the walls of my brain. It

Shonda Rhimes

#14. when you negate someone's compliment, you are telling them they are wrong. You're telling them they wasted their time. You are questioning their taste and judgment. You are insulting them. If someone wants to compliment you, let them.

Shonda Rhimes

#15. I mean that I am going to miss Cristina Yang so much that my heart hurts.

Shonda Rhimes

#16. The only obstacle to your success is your own imagination.

Shonda Rhimes

#17. Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life.

Shonda Rhimes

#18. If I am not going to change, I have to move on. I can't waste precious time hovering in the "I wishes" and the "if onlys."
That is being a dreamer. Dreamers never say yes to anything.
I HAVE TO DO.

Shonda Rhimes

#19. Cynicism is a choice. Optimism is a better choice.

Shonda Rhimes

#20. I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard.
Don't call me lucky.
Call me a badas.

Shonda Rhimes

#21. Ditch the dream and be a doer.

Shonda Rhimes

#22. Mother is a verb, not a noun.

Shonda Rhimes

#23. Every "yes" changes something in me. Every "yes" is a bit more transformative. Every "yes" sparks some new phase of revolution.

Shonda Rhimes

#24. Cristina Yang was the walking validation of my dreams.

Shonda Rhimes

#25. I really don't think there's a world in which you can do anything with anybody. Because we're in the world of the White House, I think there are certain things you can do, and larger things that can happen, but I don't think you can do anything.

Shonda Rhimes

#26. My body is just the container full of bacon that I carry my brain around in. And maybe it is. Maybe it is just the container I carry my brain around in. But so is a car. And if the car is broken down and busted, my brain isn't going anywhere. Same goes for my container.

Shonda Rhimes

#27. Losing yourself does not happen all at once. Losing yourself happens one no at a time.

Shonda Rhimes

#28. the air you are breathing right now is rare air. Appreciate it. And don't be an asshole.

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#29. Boundaries don't keep other people out, they fence you in.

Shonda Rhimes

#30. Mother is not a title. Mother is a verb. It is not who you are. It's what you do.

Shonda Rhimes

#31. You literally can shoot someone in the face on television and a 7-year-old can watch it. But you can't show the slight of a man's hip, because dear God, someone might think of sex. And while we all hope our kids grow up to have sex, we do not hope they grow up to shoot someone in the face.

Shonda Rhimes

#32. The expected is what keeps us steady. It's the unexpected that changes our lives forever.

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#33. Most of the women I saw on TV didn't seem like people I actually knew. They felt like ideas of what women are.

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#34. Nobody got anything great by playing it safe.

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#35. Now, I'm no longer looking for the enemy. So I no longer see the enemy.

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#36. I am not lucky. You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard. Don't call me lucky. Call me a badass.

Shonda Rhimes

#37. It irritated me to my core that we live in an era of ignorance great enough that it was still necessary for me to be a role model, but that didn't change the fact that I was one.

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#38. When you sit down to write every day, it becomes easier and easier to tap into that creative space inside your mind.

Shonda Rhimes

#39. You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.

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#40. I happen to like debating, and I like to debate like a lawyer, and I can argue any points to death, and I will.

Shonda Rhimes

#41. Like every other mother on the planet, from the moment my first baby entered the house, I stopped getting real sleep. Motherhood means I'm always a little bit awake, a little bit alert at all times. One eye open. So

Shonda Rhimes

#42. Look, they're wearing light blue gauzy frozen superhero capes because I have told them that Anna is a junior superhero with a black sister and a gay brother- both of whom are off ruling other countries because, y'know, they have jobs. You do your mothering your way. I'll do my mothering mine .

Shonda Rhimes

#43. Nobody ever asks a man how he gets stuff done. Nobody asks a man how he finds balance.

Shonda Rhimes

#44. Serena's not worried her friend is gonna feel bad she's not as good at tennis as Serena is. You know why? Because in order to be as good as Serena, you have to decide that your goal is that NO ONE is going to be as good as you are at tennis.
Then you have to make it true.

Shonda Rhimes

#45. I remember saying, very almost jokingly, I'm going to take over the world through television, that's my plan. And I said it to my agent, and I said it to my friends, and I said it to myself.

Shonda Rhimes

#46. Being a mother is incredibly important. To the naysayers, I growl, do not diminish it by calling it a job.

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#47. Badassery, I'm discovering, is a new level of confidence - in both yourself and those around you.

Shonda Rhimes

#48. And so I exhale. You can see it. If you watch the video, you can see me exhale. You can see the very last instant, the very last moment, the very last breath of my fear. From that exhale forth, I am someone new. Someone comfortable. Someone unafraid.

Shonda Rhimes

#49. It is time to stop standing at the edges of rooms. Hugging the walls. Living in my head. Wishing I had something to say.

Shonda Rhimes

#50. Twitter, checking in on the world, and I see a tweet from some motherhood site. It says: "Sleeplessness is a badge of honor for moms." What? A badge of honor? Right then and there, my hair catches

Shonda Rhimes

#51. This is all made worse by the fact that I'm competitive. Not normal-people competitive. Not friendly competitive. Scary-psychotic competitive. Never hand me a volleyball. Don't ask me to play a fun hand of cards. I have never heard of a casual round of Scrabble.

Shonda Rhimes

#52. You know what happens on live TV?
Janet Jackson's Super Bowl Boob happens on live TV. Adele Dazeem happens on live TV. President Al Gore happens on live TV

Shonda Rhimes

#53. The insides of my brain are a fading photograph, stories and images drifting away to places unknown. Leaving patches of nothingness where a name or an event or a location should be. Anyone

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#54. Not a single woman in the room could handle being told, "You're awesome." I couldn't handle being told I am awesome. What in the hell is wrong with us?

Shonda Rhimes

#55. The Year of Yes, I realize, has become a snowball rolling down a hill. Each yes rolls into the next into the next and the snowball is growing and growing and growing. Every yes changes something in me. Every yes is a bit more transformative. Every yes sparks some new phase of evolution.

Shonda Rhimes

#56. Cheesecake will always taste like love.

Shonda Rhimes

#57. I think it's sad, and weird, and strange that [race in casting] is still a thing. It's 2013. Somebody else needs to get their act together.

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#58. I was 4 and dictating stories into a tape recorder, and my mom typed them up.

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#59. I don't understand why people don't understand that the world of TV should look like the world outside of TV.

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#60. So you made it out of a uterus a long time ago. Big deal," I whisper. "So did everybody else on the planet. What else you got?

Shonda Rhimes

#61. You just have to keep moving forward. You just have to keep doing something, seizing the next opportunity, staying open to trying something new. It doesn't have to fit your vision of the perfect job or the perfect life. Perfect is boring, and dreams are not real. Just . . . DO.

Shonda Rhimes

#62. I never, ever pay attention to the ratings. I stopped paying attention to the ratings somewhere around season two or three of Grey's. It's something I have no control over, so I don't even pay attention.

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#63. Writing for television is completely different from movie scriptwriting. A movie is all about the director's vision, but television is a writer's medium.

Shonda Rhimes

#64. I'm a doer.
I do.
So. When I say I'm going to do something, I do it. When I say I'm going to do something, I really do it. I throw myself into it and I do. I do my ass off. I do right up to the finish line. No matter what.
No.
Matter.
What.

Shonda Rhimes

#65. Remind me to start a revolution about that later.

Shonda Rhimes

#66. People really do not like it when you decide to step off the road and climb the mountain instead. It seems to make even the people who mean well nervous.

Shonda Rhimes

#67. Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It's hard work that makes things happen. It's hard work that creates change.

Shonda Rhimes

#68. keeps his tone soothingly soft, the mellow tones of a psychiatric nurse, as he informs me that I will have to give a speech. Then he waits for me to freak out. This speech is not your

Shonda Rhimes

#69. I've learned this is a very long marriage doing a television show. I like the people that I work with to be people I enjoy, so you want to cast people who are as excited and enthusiastic as you are.

Shonda Rhimes

#70. Don't let what he wants eclipse what you need. He is very dreamy," she says. "But he is not the sun. You are.

Shonda Rhimes

#71. But we all have to acknowledge that our way is not the way.

Shonda Rhimes

#72. I felt bolstered by their friendship. By their loyalty. By the idea that I had these amazing friends, these members of my tribe, these gladiators at my back.

Shonda Rhimes

#73. Being a mother brings us face-to-face with ourselves as children, with our mothers as human beings, with our darkest fears of who we really are.

Shonda Rhimes

#74. Calling a show a 'guilty pleasure' is like saying 'I'm embarrassed to say I watch it but I can't stop.' That's not a compliment.

Shonda Rhimes

#75. Everyone always says to me, 'Why aren't there more people of color on television?' I'm like, 'Why don't you ask a bunch of people who aren't putting people of color on television why there aren't more people of color on television?'

Shonda Rhimes

#76. Lesson NUMBER THREE is that ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU THEY ARE DOING IT ALL PERFECTLY IS A LIAR.

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#77. You can't tell stories and really walk in someone's shoes and not have a love for them, even if they're doing horrible things.

Shonda Rhimes

#78. You want to be a writer? A writer is someone who writes every day, so start writing. You don't have a job? Get one. Any job. Don't sit at home waiting for the magical opportunity. Who are you? Prince William? No. Get a job. Go to work. Do something until you can do something else.

Shonda Rhimes

#79. happy, whole people are drawn to happy, whole people, but nothing makes a toxic person more miserable and destructive than a happy, whole person. Unhappy people do not like it when a fellow unhappy person becomes happy.

Shonda Rhimes

#80. Standing around like Wonder Woman in the morning can make people think you are more amazing at lunchtime. Crazy. But true. How awesome is that?

Shonda Rhimes

#81. Did I tell you what veal practice is? Oh! Veal practice involved me lying very still on the sofa trying as hard as I could to mimic the life of a veal. While eating veal. I wish I were kidding. It. Was. Magic.

Shonda Rhimes

#82. Saying 'no' has gotten me here...'here' sucks. Saying 'yes' might be my way to someplace better. If not a way to someplace better, at least a way to someplace different.

Shonda Rhimes

#83. If you want crappy things to stop happening to you, then stop accepting crap and demand something more. - CRISTINA YANG, GREY'S ANATOMY

Shonda Rhimes

#84. I'm a black woman every day, and I'm not confused about that. I'm not worried about that. I don't need to have a discussion with you about how I feel as a black woman, because I don't feel disempowered as a black woman.

Shonda Rhimes

#85. Volunteer some hours. Focus on something outside yourself. Devote a slice of your energies toward making the world suck less every week.

Shonda Rhimes

#86. I can experience life or I can give up on it.

Shonda Rhimes

#87. Her toolbox is full. She has learned to not let go of the pieces of herself that she needs in order to be what someone else wants. She's learned not to compromise. She's learned not to settle. She's learned, as difficult as it is, how to be her own sun.

Shonda Rhimes

#88. Marriage is a financial partnership. Marriage has nothing to do with love. Love is a choice we can make every day.

Shonda Rhimes

#89. Perfect is boring and dreams are not real. Just do. So you think, "I wish I could travel." Great. Sell your crappy car, buy a ticket to Bangkok, and go. Right now. I'm serious.

Shonda Rhimes

#90. Tell her how much all the little things she does all year long that seem to go unnoticed really mean to you." With a $2.59 card. Mother's Day is built on that idea.

Shonda Rhimes

#91. Sometimes the toilet paper does not win. Sometimes a broke woman needs the red wine more.

Shonda Rhimes

#92. The best stories are often true ... The narrative of human life is most beautiful when told truthfully and without boundaries.

Shonda Rhimes

#93. I have been saying yes to being fat. Which is WHY I'm now so fat. I'm not a failure; I'm successfully fat. I didn't let go of the wheel; I just turned the car down the fat road.

Shonda Rhimes

#94. To them, it is a journey that has twists, turns, bumps and possibly detours, but no end. There are no exit ramps. And they don't care. They are too busy having fun.

Shonda Rhimes

#95. If I don't poke my head out of my shell and show people who I am, all anyone will ever think I am is my shell.

Shonda Rhimes

#96. I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, engaged, powerful people, are busy doing.

Shonda Rhimes

#97. One. Word.
NO.
No is a powerful word. To me, it's the single most powerful word in the English language. Said clearly, strongly and with enough frequency and force, it can alter the course of history.

Shonda Rhimes

#98. I am terrible with examples. I can never think of them when anybody asks for an example.

Shonda Rhimes

#99. I grew up with a front-row seat to what a happy, healthy marriage looks like. Never perfect, constantly evolving, always united.

Shonda Rhimes

#100. A hashtag is not helping. A hashtag is not a movement. A hashtag does not make you Dr King. A hashtag does not change anything. It's a hashtag.

Shonda Rhimes