Rhimes Quotes

#1. 'Girls' is one of my favorite shows of all time. One of the things I love about Lena Dunham and Jenji Kohan and Shonda Rhimes is that they're all willing to show complex, amazing women.

Alysia Reiner

#2. When you're talking about people like Shonda Rhimes, Vince Gilligan or Beau Willimon, you're talking to people who are notable and celebrities in their own right. People want to know how their brains work.

Jim Rash

#3. Thank god Shonda Rhimes had this agenda to make television look like life, to make it look like the real world.

Ellen Pompeo

#4. Clearly, I'm committed to women's issues and stories and promoting gender equality. I have two incredible role models in Jenji [Kohan] and Shonda [Rhimes].

Alysia Reiner

#5. When Shonda Rhimes writes her autobiography, it should be called How to Get Away With Being an Angry Black Woman.

Alessandra Stanley

#6. I don't profess to be Shonda Rhimes by any stretch of the imagination, or Dick Wolf. They're icons. I'm a filmmaker.

Lee Daniels

#7. Shonda Rhimes is at the top of television.

Wes Brown

#8. I think it's well-known that I love all things ABC and Shonda Rhimes - I'm a huge 'Scandal' and 'Grey's Anatomy' fan.

Aja Naomi King

#9. I've met Shonda Rhimes a few times, and certainly she's an inspiration for me in television.

Lee Daniels

#10. 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

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

Shonda Rhimes

#12. There is victory in surrender.

Shonda Rhimes

#13. 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

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

Shonda Rhimes

#15. 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

#16. Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be.

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#18. This Yes is about giving yourself the permission to shift the focus of what is a priority from what's good for you over to what makes you feel good.

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#20. I think I'm most proud of the fact that I have figured out how to exist as both a creative person and artist, and a businesswoman and manager. Because those two things do not go together.

Shonda Rhimes

#21. When the press began asking me for interviews, I freaked out. My instinct is to hide.

Shonda Rhimes

#22. Making it through the ceiling to the other side was simply a matter of running on a path created by every other woman's footprints.

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#24. #StopPretendingHashtagsAreTheSameAsDoingSomething

Shonda Rhimes

#25. 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

#26. 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

#27. 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

#28. 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

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

Shonda Rhimes

#30. We all spend our lives kicking the crap out of ourselves for not being this way or that way, not having this thing or that thing, not being like this person or that person.

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#32. 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

#33. 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

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

Shonda Rhimes

#35. 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

#36. Ditch the dream and be a doer.

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#40. 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

#41. 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

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#46. 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

#47. I am different. I am an original. And like everyone else, I am here to take up space in the universe.

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#52. 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

#53. 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.

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#56. 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

#57. 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

#58. 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

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

Shonda Rhimes

#60. 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

#61. 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

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#64. 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

#65. 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

#66. 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

#67. 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

#68. 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

#69. I actually like being alone. I spend most evenings reading and taking long baths.

Shonda Rhimes

#70. 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

Shonda Rhimes

#71. 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

#72. 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

#73. Cheesecake will always taste like love.

Shonda Rhimes

#74. 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.

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#77. 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

#78. I am never more sure of myself about a topic than when I have absolutely no experience with it.

Shonda Rhimes

#79. Your body is yours. My body is mine. No one's body is up for comment. No matter how small, how large, how curvy, how flat. If you love you, then I love you.

Shonda Rhimes

#80. 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

#81. 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.

Shonda Rhimes

#82. 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

#83. 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

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

Shonda Rhimes

#85. 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

#86. 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

#87. 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

#88. 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

#89. 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

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

Shonda Rhimes

#91. 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

#92. 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

#93. 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

#94. 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

#95. When someone says something petty or nasty, one of those little passive-aggressive things that would usually just pick at me for days, my new response is not to shut the door and bitch to anyone who will listen. Now? The moment they say it? "What did you mean by that?" I ask in a calm voice. It

Shonda Rhimes

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

Shonda Rhimes

#97. 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

#98. 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

#99. 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

#100. 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