Meredith Grey quotes from Grey's Anatomy

Meredith

[voiceover] Great surgeons aren't made, they're born. It takes gestation, incubation, sacrifice. A lot of sacrifice. But after all the blood and guts and gooey stuff is washed away that surgeon you've become - totally worth it.

Meredith

[voiceover] Giving birth may be all intense and magical and stuff, but the act itself it's not exactly pleasant. But it's also a beginning of something incredible, something new, something unpredictable, something true, something worth loving, something worth missing, something that will change your life forever.

Meredith

[voiceover] There's this person... in my head. She's brilliant. Capable. She can do chest tubes and craniotomies, she can run a code without freaking out. She's a really good surgeon. Maybe even a great surgeon. She's me. Only so much better.

Meredith

[voiceover]: It was a good day. Maybe even a great day. I was a good doctor, even when it was hard, I was the me in my head. There was a moment when I thought I can't do this, I can't do this alone. But I closed my eyes and imagined myself doing it, and I did, I blocked out the fear, and I did it.

Meredith

[voiceover] The problem with being a resident is you feel crazy all the time. You haven't slept in years. You spend everyday with people in massive crisis. You lose your ability to judge what's normal, in yourself or anyone else. And yet people are constantly asking you to tell them how they're doing. How the hell are you supposed to know? You don't even know how you're doing.

Meredith

[voiceover] Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't. In the face of all we can lose in a day, in an instant, wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together.

Meredith

[walks into Dr. Wyatt's office and sits down] My mom tried to kill herself, when I was a kid, after the love of her life disappeared. I never told anybody that before. Okay, so, you think I'm broken? Fix me. 'Cause I'm no quitter. Let's go!

Meredith

[voiceover] My mother used to say that for a surgeon a day without death is a rare gift. Every day we face death, every day we lose life. And every day we're hoping for a stay of execution. We are attached to death. Chained, like prisoners. Captives.

Meredith

[voiceover] We all remember the bed time stories of our childhoods. The shoe fits Cinderella, the frog turns into a prince, sleeping beauty is awakened with a kiss. Once upon a time and then they lived happily ever after. Fairy tales, the stuff of dreams. The problem is, fairy tales don't come true. It's the other stories, the ones that begin with dark and stormy nights and end in the unspeakable. It's the nightmares that always seem to become reality. The person that invented the phrase "Happily ever after" should have his ass kicked, so hard!

Meredith

[voiceover] Once upon a time, happily ever after. The stories we tell are the stuff of dreams. Fairy tales don't come true. Reality is much stormier. Much murkier. Much scarier. Reality it's so much more interesting than living happily ever after.

Meredith

[voiceover] As surgeons we are trained to fix what's broken. The breaking point is our starting line...at work. But in our lives the breaking point is a sign of weakness and we'll do everything we can to avoid it.

Meredith

[voiceover] Bones break. Organs burst. Flesh tears. We can sew the flesh, repair the damage, ease the pain. But when life breaks down when we break down there's no science. No hard and fast rules. We just have to feel our way through. And to a surgeon there's nothing worse, and there's nothing better.

Meredith

[voiceover] In 6500 BC, some guy looked at his sick friend and said "I have an idea, why don't I drill a hole in your skull? It will make you feel better." And thus surgery was born. It takes a certain brand of crazy to come up with an idea like drilling into someone's skull, but surgeons have always been a confident bunch. We usually know what we're doing, and we don't, we still act like we do. We walk boldly into undiscovered country, plant a flag and start ordering people around. It's invigorating and terrifying.

Meredith

[voiceover] We like to think we're fearless, eager to explore unknown lands and soak up new experiences, but the fact is, we're always terrified. Maybe the terror is part of the attraction. Some people go to horror movies. We cut things open. Dive into dark water. And at the end of the day, isn't that what you'd rather to hear about? If you've got one drink and one friend and 45 minutes. Slow rides make for boring stories. A little calamity, that's worth talking about.

Meredith

[voiceover] I am a rock. I am an island. That's the mantra of pretty much every surgeon I've ever met. We like to think we're independent. Loners. Mavericks. That all we need to do our jobs is an OR, a scalpel, and a willing body. But the truth is, not even the best of us can do it alone. Surgery, like life, is a team sport, and eventually, you've gotta get off the bench and decide... what team are you batting for.