[voiceover] In the OR, time loses all meaning. In the midst of sutures, and saving lives the clock ceases to matter. 15 minutes, 15 hours — inside the OR, the best surgeons make time fly. Outside the OR, however, time takes pleasure in kicking our asses. For even the strongest of us it seems to play tricks. Slowing down... hovering... until it freezes. Leaving us stuck in a moment — unable to move in one direction or the other.
S3 E1Time Has Come Today
[pause, glances around] Why are you all looking at me?
Well, this is familiar territory for you.
There is nothing familiar abut this! Unfamiliar! Denny died. The man she loves, died.
Yeah, but you're all dark and twisty inside.
Dark and twisty?
What, with the Alzheimers thing and the father you don't talk to.
And the tequila thing and the inappropriate men thing.
You are dark and twisty inside, Meredith, and now Izzie is dark and twisty inside.
So all of a sudden I'm the president of people with crappy lives?
I feel like I'm moving in slow motion. Like I'm moving in slow motion and everything around me is moving so fast and I just wanna go back... to when things were normal. When I wasn't "Poor Izzie" laying on the bathroom floor in her prom dress with her- her dead fiance. But I am. So I can't. And I'm... just stuck. And there's all this pressure cause everyone's hovering around me waiting for me to do something. Or say something, or flip out, or yell and cry some more and I'm happy to play my part. I'm happy to say the lines and do whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing if it will make everyone feel more comfortable. But I don't- I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be this person. I don't- I don't know who this person is.
[to Meredith] I'm in love with you. I've been in love you with you forever. I'm a little late- I know I'm a little late in telling you that. I just, I just want you take your time, you know? Take all the time you need because you have a choice to make. And when I had a choice to make... I chose wrong.
[voiceover] Time flies. Time waits for no man. Time heals all wounds. All any of us wants is more time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time.
S3 E2I am a Tree
[voiceover] At any given moment, the brain has 14 billion neurons firing at a speed of 450 miles per hour. We don’t have control over most of them. When we get a chill...goose bumps. When we get excited...adrenaline. The body naturally follows its impulses, which I think is part of what makes it so hard for us to control ours. Of course, sometimes we have impulses we would rather not control, that we later wish we had.
Benjamin O'Leary, 32, in for the removal of a brain tumor that's pressing on his frontal temporal lobe. Clearly it's affecting his impulse control.
BBenjamin
It makes me say everything I think. Which apparently is annoying. This doctor looks annoyed anyway. Although it's hard to tell cause she always has kind of a pinched uptight look on her face. Am I annoying you?
It's fine.
RRuthie
You can't say it's fine. He doesn't perceive sarcasm or irony. If he's annoying you, you have to tell him.
BBenjamin
Maybe I'm not annoying her Ruthie.
No, you are.
Doctor Yang!
He asked!
Okay Benjamin, Doctor Yang, pinched and annoyed though she may be, is going to prep you for surgery today. Do you have any questions for me?
BBenjamin
[about Meredith] Is that blonde your girlfriend? 'Cause the way you keep looking at her, you might as well just mount her right here and now. [Derek and the interns are trying not to laugh.] I'm sorry was I rude?
Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd is out sick, you can cover the pit, or you can... you can tell me whose damn panties are on the bulletin board! [everybody in the background starts snickering]
[whispers to Meredith] Is it yours?
This is a hospital. People, serious work happens here. We save lives! [interns laugh] Oh, something funny? Whose're these?
This is bad. This isn't good.
You better claim them. She thinks they're mine!
Claim them? No.
Yeah I know it's one of you. It's always one of mine. Always. So, tell me. Which one of you left your damn drawers on my surgical floor?
Your mother wants to have coffee with me!
And?
And, she thinks I'm a racist. Oh, and a stripper. She thinks I'm a racist stripper!
[voiceover] The body is a slave to its impulses. But the thing that makes us human is what we can control. After the storm, after the rush, after the heat of the moment has passed, we can cool off and clean up the messes we've made. We can try to let go of what was. And then again...
S3 E3Sometimes a Fantasy
[voiceover] Surgeons usually fantasize about wild and improbable surgeries. Someone collapses in a restaurant, we splice them open with a butter knife, replace a valve with a hollowed out stick of carrot, but every now and then some other kind of fantasy slips in. Most of our fantasies dissolve when we wake, banished to the back of our mind, but sometimes we're sure if we try hard enough, we can live the dream.
(while operating on Megan) Look at this. Everybody wants a life without pain. What does it get you? She needs to be on a poster somewhere to remind people pain's there for a reason.
Enough! This is NOT dating. I want moonlight, and flowers, and candy and people trying to feel me up. Nobody is trying to feel me up. Nobody is even looking at me. I'm an intern, do the two of you have any idea how much effort it takes to do all this? I am waxed and plucked and I have a clean top on. And the two of you are looking at each other.
Meredith...
No, my fantasy is not two men looking at each other.
FFinn
We didn't...
No talking until one of you figures out how to put on a date. I want heat! I want romance! Damn it, I want to feel like a freaking lady!
[voiceover] The fantasy is simple. Pleasure is good, and twice as much pleasure is better. That pain is bad, and no pain is better. But the reality is different. The reality is that pain is there to tell us something, and there's only so much pleasure we can take without getting a stomach ache. And maybe that's okay. Maybe some fantasies are only supposed to live in our dreams.
S3 E4What I Am
[voiceover] At some point during surgical residency, most interns get a sense of who they are as doctors and the kinds of surgeons they're going to become. If you ask them, they'll tell you they're going to be general surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons. Distinctions which do more than describe their areas of expertise, they help define who they are, because outside the operating room, not only do most surgeons have no idea who they are, they're afraid to find out.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Grey's Anatomy pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.