Meredith Grey quotes from Grey's Anatomy

Meredith

[voiceover] We can’t help ourselves. We see a line, we want to cross it. Maybe it's the thrill of trading the familiar for the unfamiliar. A sort of personal dare. Only problem is, once you've crossed it's almost impossible to go back. But if you do manage to make it back across that line you find safety in numbers.

Meredith

[voiceover] It's a look patients get in their eyes. There is a scent, the smell of death. 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 die?

Meredith

[voiceover] In hospitals they say you know. You know when you're going to die. Some doctors say it's a look patients get in their eyes. Some say there's a scent, a smell of death. Some say there's just some kind of sixth sense, when the great beyond is heading for you, you feel it coming. Whatever it is, it's creepy. Because if you know, what do you do about it? Forget about the fact that you're scared out of your mind. If you knew this was your last day on earth, how would you want to spend it?

Meredith

[voiceover] After careful consideration and many sleepless nights, here's what I've decided. There's no such thing as a grown-up. We move on, we move out, we move away from our families and form our own. But the basic insecurities, the basic fears and all those old wounds just grow up with us. And just when we think that life and circumstance have forced us to truly, once and for all, become an adult, your mother says something like that. Or worse, something like that. We get bigger, we get taller, we get older. But, for the most part, we're still a bunch of kids, running around the playground, trying desperately to fit in.

Meredith

[voiceover] I've heard that it’s possible to grow up, I've just never met anyone who's actually done it. Without parents to defy, we break the rules we make for ourselves. We throw tantrums when things don't go our way. We whisper secrets with our best friends, in the dark. We look for comfort where we can find it. And we hope against all logic, against all experience. Like children, we never give up hope.

Meredith

[voiceover] As doctors, patients are always telling us how they would 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 when you don't understand the underlying cause or just how deep the wound really 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 landed us here, ignore the future complications that might arise and go for the quick fix.

Meredith

[voiceover] As doctors, as friends, as human beings, we all try to do the best we can. But the world is full of unexpected twists and turns. And just when you've gotten the lay of the land, the ground underneath you shifts. And knocks you off your feet. If you're lucky, you'll end up with nothing more than a flesh wound, something a band-aid will cover. But, some wounds are deeper than they first appear and require more than just a quick fix. With some wounds, you have to rip off the band-aid, let them breathe, and give them time to heal.

Meredith

[voiceover] My college campus has a magic statue. It's a longstanding tradition for students to rub its nose for good luck. My freshman roommate really believed in the statue's power and insisted on visiting it to rub its nose before every exam. Studying might have been a better idea, she flunked out at sophomore year. The fact is, we all have little superstitious things that we do. If it's not believing in magic statues, it's avoiding sidewalk cracks or always putting our left shoe on first. Knock on wood. Step on a crack, break your mothers back. The last thing we want to do is offend the gods.

Meredith

[voiceover] Superstition lies in the space between what we can control and what we can't. Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long you'll have good luck. No one wants to pass up a chance for good luck, but does saying it thirty three times really help? Is anyone really listening? And if no ones listening, why do we bother doing those strange things at all? We rely on superstitions because we're smart enough to know we don't have all the answers. And that life works in mysterious ways. Don't diss the juju, from wherever it comes.

Meredith

[voiceover] A good basketball game can have us all on the edge of our seats. Games are all about the glory, pain and the play by play. And then there are the more solitary games. The games we each play all by ourselves. The social games, the mind games, we use them to pass the time to make life more interesting to distract us from what's really going on. There are those of us who love to play games, any games. And there are those of us who love to play a little too much.

Meredith

[voiceover] Life is not a spectator sport. Win, lose, or draw, the game is in progress, whether we want it to be or not. So go ahead argue with the refs, change the rules, cheat a little, take a break and tend to your wounds. But play. Play. Play hard, play fast, play loose and free. Play as if there's no tomorrow. [pause] Okay, so it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game... right?

Meredith

[voiceover] The key to being a successful intern is what we give up: sleep, friends, a normal life. We sacrifice it all for that one amazing moment, that moment when you can legally call yourself a surgeon. There are days that make the sacrifices seem worthwhile. And then there are the days where everything feels like a sacrifice. And then there are the sacrifices that you can't even figure out why you're making.

Meredith

[voiceover] We all go through life like bulls in a china shop. A chip here, a crack there. Doing damage to ourselves, to other people. [...] The problem is trying to figure out how to control the damage we've done, or that's been done to us. Sometimes the damage catches us by surprise. Sometimes we think we can fix the damage. And sometimes the damage is something we can't even see.

Meredith

[voiceover] We're all damaged, it seems. Some of us, more than others. We carry the damage with us from childhood, then as grownups, we give as good as we get. Ultimately, we all do damage. And then, we set about the business of fixing whatever we can.

Meredith

[voiceover] In life we are taught that there are seven deadly sins. We all know the big ones... gluttony, pride, lust. But the sin you don't hear much about is anger. Maybe it's because we think anger's not that dangerous. That you can control it. My point is, maybe we don't give anger enough credit. Maybe it can be a lot more dangerous than we think. After all, when it comes to destructive behavior, it did make the top seven.