This show is something that most readers would consider a ‘classic’ and a ‘must-have’ reference for life, so we’ve rounded up the best Grey’s Anatomy quotes that’ll give you an emotional roller coaster ride—bringing all the emotions of the show and as well as some valuable life lessons you can refer to when you’re feeling down.
Grey’s Anatomy has been on air and on our screens since 2005, and is now considered to be the longest-running, scripted, prime-time show on ABC.
It’s been a crazy ride for both the characters and the audience, but because of it’s intense storylines and conflicts, and of course, the amazing words of wisdom from our beloved characters, everyone still looks back and watches the show over a decade later.
Check out our list below.
And be sure to read these Supernatural quotes and Criminal Minds quotes.
Best Grey’s Anatomy Quotes
1. “Don’t let what he wants eclipse what you need. He’s very dreamy, but he’s not the sun. You are.” – Christina Yang
2. “Sometimes, it’s good to be scared. It means you still have something to lose.” – Richard Webber
3. “I am not an ugly duckling. I’m a swan.” – April Kepner
4. “Uprooting my entire life is not an inconvenience!” – April Kepner
5. “It turns out sometimes you have to do the wrong thing. Sometimes, you have to make a big mistake to figure out how to make things right. Mistakes are painful, but they’re the only way to find out who we really are.” – Denny Duquette
6. “You were like coming up for fresh air. It’s like I was drowning and you saved me. That’s all I know.” – Derek Shepherd
7. “‘Cause you never think that the last time is the last time. You think there will be more. You think you have forever, but you don’t.” – Meredith Grey
Related: Meredith Grey Quotes
8. “Oh screw beautiful! I’m brilliant! If you want to appease me, compliment my brain.” – Christina Yang
9. “In the beginning, everyone is there, but then they forget.” – Amelia Shepherd
10. “Okay, here it is, your choice—it’s simple, her or me, and I’m sure she is really great. But Derek, I love you, in a really, really big ‘pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window,’ unfortunate way that makes me hate you, love you.” – Meredith Grey
11. “I’ve had to give up things but what I’ve learned is that I don’t need much. I don’t need much to be happy.” – Arizona Robbins
12. “Being aware of your crap and actually overcoming your crap are two very different things” – Cristina Yang
Related: Cristina Yang Quotes
13. “You didn’t love her! You just didn’t want to be alone. Or maybe, maybe she was good for your ego. Or, or maybe she made you feel better about your miserable life, but you didn’t love her, because you don’t destroy the person that you love!” – Callie Torres
14. “I love you. I do. I just, I love you. And I have been trying not to say it. I have been trying so hard to just mash it down and ignore it and not say it and Jackson is a great guy. But it was never gonna work out, because I love you.” – Lexie Grey
15. “Knowing is better than wondering. Waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beats the hell out of never trying.” – Meredith Grey
16. “You have to go back to the beginning to understand the end.” – Teddy Altman
17. “If you want crappy things to stop happening to you, stop accepting crap and demand something more.” – Cristina Yang
18. “I need the day off. For drinking.” – Addison Montgomery
19. “Yeah we’re friends. I mean, right now I’d probably say you’re one of my best friends.” – George O’Malley
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Famous Grey’s Anatomy Quotes
20. “I love everything about you. Even the things I don’t like, I love. And I want you with me. I love you and I think you love me too. Do you
” – Jackson Avery
21. “Each of you comes here today hopeful—wanting in on the game. A month ago, you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical residents will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure and two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena.” – Richard Webber
22. “I am a woman. Hear me roar.” – Miranda Bailey
23. “How well will you play
That’s up to you.” – Richard Webber
24. “It’s a beautiful day to save lives.” – Derek Shepherd
25. “Just because people do horrible things, it doesn’t always mean they’re horrible people.” – Izzie Stevens
26. “So pick me, choose me, love me.” – Meredith Grey
27. “You can have the worst crap in the world happen to you and you can get over it. All you gotta do is survive.” – Alex Karev
28. “Walk tall. All you can do is be brave enough to get out there. You fought. You loved. You Lost. Walk tall.” – Mark Sloan
29. “I am so in love with you. You’re in me. It’s like you’re a disease. It’s like I am infected by Mark Sloan and I just can’t think about anything or anybody and I can’t sleep. I can’t breathe. I can’t eat. And I love you. I love you all the time. Every minute of every day. I love you. God, that feels good to just say that. I feel so much better. I love you.” – Lexie Grey
Grey’s Anatomy Quotes on Hard Work and Perseverance
30. “If you aren’t willing to keep looking for light in the darkest of places without stopping, even when it seems impossible, you will never succeed.” – Amelia Shepherd
31. “Grief comes in it’s own time for everyone in it’s own way. So the best we can do—the best anyone can do—is try for honesty.” – Meredith Grey
32. “The really crappy thing—the very worst part of grief—is that you can’t control it. The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it when it comes and let it go when we can.” – Meredith Grey
33. “Let’s play a game of whose life sucks the most. I’ll win. I always win.” – Meredith Grey
34. “Don’t let fear keep you quiet. You have a voice so use it. Speak up. Raise your hands. Shout your answers. Make yourself heard.” – Meredith Grey
35. “Whatever it takes, just find your voice, and when you do, fill the damn silence.” – Meredith Grey
36. “We’re adults. When did that happen
How do we make it stop
” – Meredith Grey
37. “Hope. It’s recurrent, it keeps creeping back in no matter how many times it gets ripped apart and every time the hope goes it takes chunks of you with it.” – Nicole Herman
38. “The thing we gotta try to remember is that it can turn on a dime. That’s how you stay alive when it hurts so much you can’t breathe. That’s how you survive. By remembering that one day somehow, impossibly, it won’t feel this way. It won’t hurt this much.” – Meredith Grey
39. “You can’t be an ass to me all day and then expect me to give you respect.” – Lexie Grey
40. “Please don’t give up on me. Promise. Promise me you won’t.” – Arizona Robbins
41. “Bad things happen, but you have to move past it. Leave it behind. The sooner, the better. Or it’ll eat away at you and stop you from moving forward.” – Miranda Bailey
42. “Why does it feel so good to get rid of things
To unload
To let go
Maybe because when we see how little we actually need to survive, it makes us realize how powerful we actually are. To strip down to only what we need. To hang on to only what we can’t do without. Not just to survive, but to thrive.” – Meredith Grey
43. “It’ll hurt every time you think of her. But over time, it will hurt less and less. And eventually, you’ll remember her and it will only hurt a little.” – Cristina Yang
44. “Grief may be a thing we all have in common, but it looks different on everyone. It isn’t just death we have to grieve. It’s life, it’s loss, it’s change. And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, it has to hurt so bad.” – Meredith Grey
45. “Make a plan. Set a goal. Work toward it, but every now and then look around. Drink it in, ’cause this is it. It might all be gone tomorrow.” – Meredith Grey
46. “So you fight, until you can’t fight anymore.” – Amelia Shepherd
47. “You’re allowed to want what you want even if it’s not what he wants.” – Richard Webber
48. “Helm, you can either live here or talk, but you can’t do both.” – Jo Wilson
49. “I think you have to stop asking if you can do it, Jo, and realize that you already are.” – Link
Grey’s Anatomy Quotes That Are All About Love
50. “I’m just gonna feel bad that I made it so you can never love again.” – Jo Wilson
51. “If you love someone, you tell them. Even if you’re scared that it’s not the right thing. Even if you’re scared that it’ll cause problems. Even if you’re scared that it will burn your life to the ground, you say it, and you say it out loud and you go from there.” – Mark Sloan
52. “Stop looking at me like that. Like you’ve seen me naked.” – Meredith Grey
53. “Deal with your jealousy. Deal with your shortcomings. Don’t put your crap on me.” – Stephanie Edwards
54. “I know I’m not a lot of things that you’ve gone for in the past. I know, but I would never leave you. I would never hurt you. And I will never stop loving you.” – George O’Malley
55. “More tequila. More love. More anything. More is better.” – Meredith Grey
56. “For a kiss to be really good, you want it to mean something. You want it to be with someone you can’t get out of your head, so that when your lips finally touch you feel it everywhere. A kiss so hot and so deep you never want to come up for air. You can’t cheat your first kiss. Trust me, you don’t want to. Cause when you find that right person for a first kiss, it’s everything.” – Alex Karev
57. “Shut up. Dance it out.” – Cristina Yang
58. “We may only be together five minutes every two months, but when we do, we will savor every second. We know how valuable those five minutes are.” – Ben Warren
59. “The problem is we are human. We want more than to just survive. We want to love.” – Lexie Grey
60. “It’s funny, isn’t it
A weight lifts, the sun shines a little brighter, and for a brief moment, we find a little peace.” – Meredith Grey
61. “I’m up there waiting for you to come down the aisle and I know you don’t want to come. If I loved you, I wouldn’t be up there waiting for you. I would be letting you go.” – Preston Burke
62. “You think you broke me, little grey
You’re the one who put me back together.” – Mark Sloan
63. “I want so much for you—for both of us. So much more than this. More than being stuck with someone who feels stuck. I want you to feel free.” – Callie Torres
64. “Whoever said, ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you,’ was a complete and total moron. Sometimes not knowing is the worst thing in the world.” – Meredith Grey
65. “Every kiss before the right kiss doesn’t count anyway.” – Derek Shepherd
66. “Promise that you’ll love me, even when you hate me.” – Meredith Grey
67. “The problem is, fairytales don’t come true. It’s the nightmares that always seem to become the reality.” – Meredith Grey
68. “How are you fine
How are you just completely fine
I am ruined, okay
I am dead, I am wrecked.” – Cristina Yang
69. “Some lies aren’t lies. They’re love.” – Meredith Grey
Grey’s Anatomy Quotes on Life and Aspirations
70. “The future is the home of our deepest fears and our wildest hopes.” – Owen Hunt
71. “I take things personally. I get emotional.” – Lexie Grey
72. “Pretty good is not good enough. I want to be great.” – Cristina Yang
73. “Sometimes, you have to be a shark.” – Lucy Fields
74. “You are in a spaceship. You’re going to the moon. Enjoy the ride.” – Alex Karev
75. “My good relationships started out as friends and then became more and then you know, died—screaming.” – Maggie Pierce
76. “Maybe it’s this expectation of wanting to be happy that just keeps us from ever getting there. Maybe the more we try to bring ourselves to state’s of bliss, the more confused we get—to the point where we don’t recognize ourselves. Instead, we just keep smiling—trying to be the happy people we wish we were. Until it eventually hits us, it’s been there all along. Not in our dreams or our hopes, but in the known, the comfortable, the familiar.” – Meredith Grey
77. “There comes a point when you have to suck it up. and stop whining, and start living.” – Callie Torres
78. “Yes, horrible things do happen. Happiness, in the face of all of that, that’s not the goal. Feeling horrible, and knowing that you’re not gonna die from those feelings, that’s the point.” – Katherine Wyatt
79. “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 mess we made. We can try to let go of what was.” – Meredith Grey
80. “Why do we even try when the barriers are so high and the odds are so low
Why don’t we just pack it in and go home
” – Amelia Shepherd
81. “Ask most people what they want out of life and the answer is simple—to be happy.” – Meredith Grey
82. “Picture the life you dreamed of living. Are you living the life you envisioned for yourself
Are you who you wanted to be when you grew up
” – Meredith Grey
83. “Don’t analyze everything. Just do it.” – Alex Karev
84. “That’s where love exists—in delusional fantasies.” – Meredith Grey
85. “It’s you and me—the plastic posse. Kicking ass and taking names.” – Mark Sloan
86. “I’m a superstar—superstar with a scalpel.” – Callie Torres
87. “We don’t get unlimited chances to have the things that we want, and this I know. Nothing is worse than missing an opportunity that could have changed your life.” – Addison Montgomery
88. “Friends are the family we choose.” – Meredith Grey
89. “Don’t ever date a man who can’t handle your power.” – Meredith Grey
Inspirational and Humorous Grey’s Anatomy Quotes
90. “Not everyone has to be happy all the time. That isn’t mental health. That’s crap.” – Meredith Grey
91. “There’s a land called passive agressiva, and you’re their queen.” – Derek Shepherd
92. “Let’s just make-out on the couch.” – Nathan Riggs
93. “Maybe we like the pain. Maybe we’re wired that way. Because without it, I don’t know; maybe we just wouldn’t feel real. What’s that saying
Why do I keep hitting myself with a hammer
Because it feels so good when I stop.” – Meredith Grey
94. “Every intern wants to perform their first surgery. That’s not your job. Do you know what your job is
To make your resident happy. Do I look happy
No! Why
Because my interns are whiney. You know what will make me look happy
Having the code team staffed, having the trauma pages answered, having the weekend labs delivered and having someone down in the pit doing the sutures. No one holds a scalpel until I’m so happy I’m Mary Freaking Poppins.” – Miranda Bailey
95. “Don’t look at me like that. Like I’m damaged goods. I’m still me. I’m still here.” – Adele Webber
96. “I can do hot in my sleep. I look hot in scrubs. I am a hot person.” – Cristina Yang
97. “You grew up. It’s a shame, an awful thing to grow up. The carousel never stops turning. You can never get off.” – Ellis Grey
98. “Some days, the whole world seems upside down. And then somehow, and probably, when you least expect it, the world gets right again.” – Meredith Grey
99. “Knowing is better than wondering, waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beats the hell out of never trying.” – Meredith Grey
100. “This is the way the world changes. Good people, raising babies right.” – Catherine Avery
101. “You know, he’s acting like I committed a crime. Like my apartment is full of stolen goods. He’s acting like I kept my apartment to hide stolen goods, so I could do illegal organ transplants for money.” – Cristina Yang
102. “There’s a club—the Dead Dads Club. And you can’t be in it until you’re in it. You can try to understand, you can sympathize, but until you feel that loss,my dad died when I was nine. George, I’m really sorry you had to join the club.” – Cristina Yang
103. “I’m going to die because these people aren’t properly trained.” – Derek Shepherd
104. “I believe if you were dead, the world would be a better place.” – George O’Malley
105. “The expected is what keeps us steady. It’s the unexpected that changes our lives forever.” – Meredith Grey
106. “I didn’t like teenage girls when I was a teenage girl.” – Cristina Yang
107. “Do not alarm the makers of the tiny humans. They will eat you.” – Arizona Robbins
108. “I’m a better woman than you.” – Mark Sloan
109. “Breakthroughs don’t happen because of the medicine. Real breakthroughs happen because someone is scared to death to stop trying.” – Derek Shepherd
110. “Yes or no. In or out. Up or down. Live or die. Hero or coward. Fight or give in. I’ll say it again to make sure you hear me. Human life is made up of choices. Live or die. That’s the important choice. And it’s not always in our hands.” – Derek Shepherd
Did These Grey’s Anatomy Quotes Give You the Strength to Power on Through Life’s Challenges
With more than a decade of air time, we’ve certainly watched the characters of Grey’s Anatomy grow up in front of our own eyes. We’ve seen all their ups and their downs, and all their failures and victories.
But above all, we’ve seen how they learn from each and everything they face—whether it’s positive or not. And maybe, out of all the life lessons in the show, what’s really important is that it taught us to move on from our mistakes.
Because after all, while it’s important to learn our lessons, it’s equally important to not wallow in our mistakes forever and instead take that next step forward.
Did you also watch Grey’s Anatomy when you were growing up
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