Izzie Stevens
- Get past it
She can have more than a trailer park and a graveyard shift at a truck-stop diner. Don't you want that for her? I mean, if you can get past the fact that I'm superior, and that I'm judging you, and telling you what's best for your family... if you can just get past all of that, isn't it possible that I'm also right?
Meredith Grey
- Sixth Sense
It's a look patients get in their eyes.. Some kind of sixth sense, when the great beyond is headed for you, you feel it coming. What's the one thing you've always dreamed of doing before you died?
Meredith Grey
- Quick Fix
As doctors, patients are always telling us they'd do our jobs. Just stitch me up, slap a band-aid on it and send me home. It's easy to suggest a quick solution, when you don't know much about the problem or you don't understand the underlying cause or just how deep the wound is. The first step toward a real cure is to know exactly what the disease is to begin with. But that's not what people want to hear.. We're supposed to forget the past that led us here and go for the quick fix.
Meredith Grey
- Rules of Intimacy
I wish there were a rule book for intimacy. Some kind of guide to tell you when you've crossed the line. It would be nice if you could see it coming, and I don't know how you fit it on a map. You take it where you can get it, and keep it as long as you can. As for rules, maybe there are none. Maybe the rules of intimacy are something we have to define for ourselves.
Meredith Grey
- Playing the field
I can't think of a single reason why I should be a surgeon, but I can think of a thousand reasons why I should quit. They make it hard on purpose. There are lives in our hands. There comes a moment when it's more than just a game, and you either take that step forward or turn around and walk away. I could quit, but here's the thing. I love playing the field.
Meredith Grey
- Lines
It's all about lines. The finish line at the end of residency, waiting in line for a chance at the operating table, and then there's the most important line, the line separating you from the people you work with. It doesn't help to get too familiar to make friends. You need boundaries, between you and the rest of the world. Other people are far too messy. It's all about lines... drawing lines in the sand and praying like hell no one crosses them.
Meredith Grey
- Seven days a week, 14 hours a day
We live our lives on the surgical unit. Seven days a week, 14 hours a day, we're together more than we're apart. After a while, the ways of residency becomes the ways of life. Number one: Always keep score. Number two: Do whatever you can to outsmart the other guy. Number three: Don't make friends with the enemy. Oh, yeah, Number four: Everything, everything is a competition. Whoever said winning wasn't everything... Never held a scalpel.
Izzie Stevens
- Out of debt
What are these? Oh, my God! Breasts! How does anybody practice medicine hauling these things around? And what have we got back here? Let's see if I remember my anatomy. Glutes, right? Let's study them, shall we? Gather around and check out the booty that put Izzie Stevens through med school! Have you had enough, or should I continue? You want to call me Dr. Model? That's fine. Just remember that while you're still sitting on two hundred grand of student loans... I'm out of debt.
Meredith Grey
- Totally Overrated - Part 2
Adults have to be places and do things and earn a living and pay the rent. And if you're training to be a surgeon, holding a human heart in your hands, hello? Talk about responsibility. Kind of makes bikes and cookies look really, really good, doesn't it? The scariest part about responsibility? When you screw up and let it slip right through your fingers.
Meredith Grey
- Totally Overrated - Part 1
Remember when you were a kid and your biggest worry was, like, if you'd get a bike for your birthday or if you'd get to eat cookies for breakfast. Being an adult? Totally overrated. I mean seriously, don't be fooled by all the hot shoes and the great sex and the no parents anywhere telling you what to do. Adulthood is responsibility. Responsibility, it really does suck. Really, really sucks.
Meredith Grey
- Responsibility
Responsibility. It really does suck. Unfortunately, once you get past the age of braces and training bras, responsibility doesn't go away. It can't be avoided. Either someone makes us face it or we suffer the consequences. And still adulthood has its perks. I mean the shoes, the sex, the no parents anywhere telling you what to do. That's, pretty damn good.
Meredith Grey
- Fear - Part 2
Sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you're wrong. What if you make a mistake you can't undo. Whatever it is we're afraid of, one thing holds true. That by the time the pain of not doing the thing gets worse than the fear of doing it. It can feel like we're carrying around a giant tumor. And you thought I was speaking metaphorically.
Meredith Grey
- Fear - Part 1
A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret to his success. 'Never leave that 'till tomorrow,' he said, 'Which you could do today.' This is the man who discovered electricity. You'd think more of us would listen to what he had to say. I don't know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I'd say it had a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure. Fear of pain. Fear of rejection.
Meredith Grey
- The early bird - Part 2
We have to sweep today's possibilities under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves like Benjamin Franklin meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst intractable mistake beats the hell out of never trying.
Meredith Grey
- The early bird - Part 1
The early bird catches the worm; a stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we haven't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons.
Meredith Grey
- Fairy tales - Part 12
But eventually you grow up and one day you open your eyes and the fairy tale disappears. Most people turn to the things and people they can trust. But the thing is, it's hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely because almost everyone has that smallest bit of hope and faith that one day they would open their eyes and it would all come true.
Meredith Grey
- Fairy tales - Part 1
You know when you were a little kid and you believed in fairy tales? That fantasy of what your life would be - white dress, prince charming who'd carry you away to a castle on a hill. You'd lie in your bed at night and close your eyes and you had complete and utter faith. Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming - they were so close you could taste them.
Meredith Grey
- The thing is - Part 2
The castle, well it may not be a castle. And it's not so important that it's happily ever after - just that it's happy right now. See, once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you. And once in awhile, people may even take your breath away.
Meredith Grey
- The thing is - Part 1
But the thing is, it's hard to let go of the fairy tale entirely, because almost everyone has that smallest bit of faith and hope that one day they would open their eyes and it would all come true. At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expect it. It's like one day you realize that the fairy tale is slightly different than your dream.
Meredith Grey
- Secrets can't hide in science - Part 2
That's the problem with secrets - like misery, they love company. They pile up and up until they take over everything, until you don't have room for anything else, until you're so full of secrets you feel like you're going to burst.
