Meredith Grey quotes from Grey's Anatomy

Meredith

[ending voice over] That list of things you'd grab in a disaster, Your kids. Your keys. Your family photo album. That list goes out the window when the disaster starts with you wondering if this must be the woman who's been screwing your husband. That's a whole other earthquake.

Meredith

[opening voice over] We teach residents when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. It means that the most obvious answer is usually right. It keeps doctors from heading down the wrong path. It helps us stick to the truth. It helps us save lives. It's part of what makes me a good surgeon. When I hear hoofbeats, horses. I always think horses. Even when I shouldn't.

Meredith

[ending voice over] Things are not always what they appear to be. They are often an indicator of something bigger going on. Deep underneath. Symptoms, Red Flags, Warning signs, things we should pay attention to. Things we shouldn't ever ignore. Things that are bad. Things that could really hurt us. Things that it might just be too late to fix.

Meredith

[opening voice over] There's this thing I used to do when I was a kid, to my mother's VCR. I'd take it apart, piece by piece, then put it back together again. But inevitably, there was always a piece or two left over, something I didn't quite know what to do with. So what do you do with that piece? Do you try to fit it back in? Do you try to make it work? Or do you decide you can live without that missing piece?

Meredith

[ending voice over] When we go without certain things long enough, it's easy to forget just how much we need them. We forget what we had once. We forget what it's like to live with a thing, not that we need, but that we want. That's why it's so important for us to remind ourselves, for us to remember, just because we can live without something, it doesn't mean we have to.

Meredith

[opening voice over] Picture the life you dreamed of living. The person you pictured being with. Picture the job you dreamed you'd have. Are you living the life you envisioned for yourself? Are you who you wanted to be when you grew up?

Meredith

[ending voice over] Open your eyes. Take a good look around you. How's the view? Do you like what you see? Think back again to when you were little. Are you living the life you pictured for yourself? Or are you still dreaming of something even bigger?

Meredith

[opening voice over] Love. Neuroscience tells us it activates the same parts of the brain as habit-forming addiction. It makes us feel like we can do anything, be anything, achieve anything. And once we taste it, we want more.

Meredith

[ending voice over] The thing about love is, when it's good, it's so very good, and when it's bad, it hurts so much. And if you can't find a way to balance all those ups and down, it will make you crazy.

Meredith

[opening voice over] A surgical residency is all about training for the worst. But, as prepared as we might be, we usually don’t see disaster coming. We can try to envision the worst-case scenario, to foresee catastrophe. But, when true disaster strikes, it often comes out of nowhere. And when the worst really does happen, we find ourselves completely blindsided.

Meredith

[ending voice over] Why do bad things happen to good people? We ask that question so often, it's become a cliché, but that's because bad things do happen to good people constantly. You just have to hope that when it's your turn, you'll know what to do, how to cope, how to persevere. But the truth is, you don't know how you'll react to your worst-case scenario. None of us do. Not until it happens.

Meredith

[opening voice over] When I was five, my mom lost me in a park. I don’t remember much except one minute I was riding the carousel and then the next, she was gone. I don’t remember how I found her. I don’t remember how I got home. All I remember is what happened next. She told me not to worry. She told me everything would be fine. Funny, isn’t it? The way memory works. The things you can’t quite remember, and the things you never forget. The carousel never stops turning.

Meredith

[opening voice over] Time stops when you’re in the O.R. You step up to the table, you evaluate the patient, you pick up a scalpel, and then you go into a bubble. It’s just you and your surgery and nothing else matters; not time, not pain, not exhaustion, nothing. It happens in real life too. When something big happens, something tragic, you freeze, you retreat into your happy bubble for what seems like a second, until you look up. And suddenly, you realise it's a whole new world.

Meredith

[ending voice over] How do you step back into the world? It’s scary. Time stood still and now it’s speeding by. You’re looking for a lifeboat, something to give you hope. But are you really ready to leave your happy little bubble and step back out into the big, blinding, bloody, terrible world? Are you ready to achieve the impossible?

Meredith

[opening voice over] I remember once in school someone saying I came from a broken home. That’s what they used to call it when your parents got divorced, even though getting divorced was the least broken they ever did. When I heard that as a kid, I wondered if broken homes were where broken people lived. It was silly, I mean I was just a little kid. But, to this day I still wonder.