Meredith Grey quotes from Grey's Anatomy

Meredith

[voiceover] As doctors, we have an arsenal of weapons at the ready. Antibiotics to kill infections, narcotics to fight pain, scalpels and retractors to removes tumors and cancers, to eradicate the threat. But just the physical threat, for every other kind, you're on your own.

Meredith

[voiceover] The skin is the largest organ in the body. It protects us. Holds us together. Literally lets us know what we are feeling. The skin can be soft and vulnerable. Highly sensitive. Easy to break. Skin doesn't matter to a surgeon, we'll cut right through it, go inside, find out the secrets underneath. It takes delicacy and sensitivity.

Meredith

[voiceover] No matter how thick-skinned we try to be, there's millions of electrified nerve endings in there. Open and exposed and feeling way too much. Try as we might to keep from feeling pain. Sometimes it's just unavoidable. Sometimes, that's the only thing left: just feeling.

Meredith

[voiceover] It's a common belief that positive thinking leads to a happier, healthier life. As children, we're told to smile, and be cheerful, and put on a happy face. As adults, we're told to look on the bright side, to make lemonade, and see glasses as half full. Sometimes reality can get in the way of our ability to act the happy part though. Your health can fail, boyfriends can cheat, friends can disappoint. It's in these moments, when you just want to get real, drop the act, and be your true scared unhappy self.

Meredith

[voiceover] Ask most people what they want out of life and the answer is simple - to be happy. Maybe it's this expectation though of wanting to be happy that just keeps us from ever getting there. Maybe the more we try to will ourselves to states of bliss, the more confused we get - to the point where we don't recognize ourselves. Instead we just keep smiling - trying like hell to be the happy people we wish we were. Until eventually it hits us, it's been there all along. Not in our dreams or our hopes but in the known, the comfortable, the familiar.

Meredith

[voiceover] For most people, a hospital is a scary place. A hostile place. A place where bad things happen. Most people would prefer church, or school, or home, but I grew up here. While my mom was on rounds, I learned to read in the OR gallery, I played in the morgue, I colored with crayons on old ER charts. The hospital was my church, my school, my home; the hospital was my safe place, my sanctuary. I love it here. Correction: loved it here.

Meredith

[voiceover] Every cell in the human body regenerates on average every seven years. Like snakes, in our own way we shed our skin. Biologically we are brand new people. We may look the same, we probably do, the change isn't visible at least not in most of us, but we are all changed completely forever.

Meredith

[voiceover] When we say things like "People don't change" it drives scientists crazy. Because change is literally the only constant in all of science. Energy, matter, it's always changing. Morphing. Merging. Growing. Dying. It's the way people try not to change that's unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of letting them be what they are. The way we cling to old memories instead of forming new ones. The way we insist on believing, despite every scientific indication, that anything in this lifetime is permanent. Change is constant. How we experience change, that's up to us. It can feel like death, or it can feel like a second chance at life. If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline. Like at any moment we can have another chance at life. Like at any moment, we can be born all over again.

Meredith

They say lightning never strikes twice, but that's a myth. It doesn't happen often. Lightning usually gets it right the first time. When you're hit with 30,000 amps of electricity you feel it. It can make you forget who you are, it can burn you, blind you, stop your heart and cause massive internal injuries. But for something that happens in only a millisecond, it can change your life forever.

Meredith

[angry] Go hug yourself!

Meredith

[voiceover] Lightning doesn't often strike twice. It's a once in a lifetime thing. Even if it feels like the shock is coming over and over again. Eventually the pain will go away, the shock will wear off. And you start to heal yourself. To recover from something you never saw coming. But, sometimes the odds are in your favor. If you're in just the right place at just the right time you can take a helluva hit. And still have a shot at surviving.

Meredith

[voiceover] Most surgeons grew up being freaks. While other kids played outside, we holed up in our rooms, memorizing the periodic table, hovering for hour over our genuine microscopes, dissecting our first frogs. Imagine how surprised and relieved we were when we grew up and found out that others out there are just as freaky as we were. Same microscopes, same dead frogs, same inexplicable urge to take human beings apart.

Meredith

[voiceover] Nobody chooses to be a freak. Most people don't even realize they're a freak until it's way too late to change it. But no matter how much of a freak you end up being, chances are there's still someone out there for you. Unless of course they've already moved on. Because when it comes to love, even freaks can't wait forever.

Meredith

Biology determines much of the way we live. From the moment we're born we know how to breathe and eat. As we grow older, new instincts kick in. We become territorial, we learn to compete, we seek shelter… Most important of all, we reproduce. Sometimes biology can turn on us though. Yeah, biology sucks sometimes.

Meredith

[voiceover] Biology says that we are who we are from birth. That our DNA is set in stone. Unchangeable. Our DNA doesn't account for all of us though. We're human. Life changes us. We develop new trades. Become less territorial. We stop competing. We learn from our mistakes. We face our greatest fears. For better or worse. We find ways to become more than our biology. The risk, of course is that we can change to much, to the point we don't recognize ourselves. Finding a way back can be difficult. There is no compass, no map. We just have to close our eyes, take a step and hope to God we'll get there.