Quotes from Shonda Rhimes

I don't care what color you are, what size you are, where you're from. It is disturbing that there's an idea that only tall, thin, willowy, size 0 women are attractive - even for the tall, thin, willowy, size 0 woman! We all should get to feel like there's something powerful and beautiful about who we are.

These days, I feel like a chunky spy in a thinner world. Strangers tell fat jokes in front of me. Jokes not meant for me. But... completely for the woman I used to be 150 pounds ago. The woman I could be again one day. The woman I will always be inside. Because being thinner doesn't make you a different person. It just makes you thinner.

I truly feel like my job is to make the shows. That's what I'm paid to do. It's somebody else's job to market them, and it's somebody else's job to pay attention to the ratings, because if I paid attention to all that, my head would explode.

I never, ever pay attention to the ratings. I stopped paying attention to the ratings somewhere around season two or three of 'Grey's.' It's something I have no control over, so I don't even pay attention.

Disney has made $2 billion on 'Grey's Anatomy.' I don't have $2 billion.

We have people say, 'There's not enough women writers.' I have a writers room that is almost nothing but women over at 'Grey's Anatomy.'

That first year I was doing 'Grey's,' I didn't know it was possible to fire the creator of a show off their own show, so I didn't behave like somebody who was afraid of being fired.

My 15-year-old threw open the door the other day to my room and screamed, ''Freaks and Geeks' only has one season? Can they make another one?' And I tried to explain to her that it happened a long time ago. She didn't understand that because it felt very relevant to her.

I believe that good television should be challenging and frustrating and maddening and thrilling. If you just want to see people who look like you and think like you and do what you would do in any given situation, you'd have to stop looking at TV and start looking in a mirror. But would that be as much fun?

I like working more than I like being at home. Facing that fact is incredibly difficult to handle, because what kind of person likes working more than being at home?

When you help make people healthier, it makes the nation healthier; it makes the world healthier. It makes the economy healthier.

When the script is finished, and you're sitting around at a table read, and all the actors are reading the words that you've written, and you're hearing it out loud for the first time, that is always, every single time, no matter what, a magical process.

The idea that the more you hide something, the more it becomes something that's supposed to feel shameful is very true.

My parents are professors; they're intellectual. I spent a lot of time reading books. To me, everyone always looks like they do in your imagination. And in my imagination, the characters always looked like me.

I want to be able to sing like Whitney Houston did.

My philosophy was always try to look like Whitney Houston at all times. That did not work out so well.

I am never worried that I'm not gonna get my work done. I was the kid who got straight As and was a little too intense in school. Like, I am a perfectionist, and I am going to sit at the front of the class with my hand raised.

My worst trait is that I'm an introvert. When I've led stuff, the hardest thing for me to overcome has been my natural desire to run and hide. I'm very proud of the fact that I have been able to do that.

What's great about Netflix is that everything is kind of instantaneous, and it goes around the world instantly. Everything is released at once. The format can be a little bit whatever you want.

I don't identify with her, but I highly admire Eleanor Roosevelt.

After I lost weight, I discovered that people found me valuable. Worthy of conversation. A person one could look at. A person one could compliment. A person one could admire. A person.

I have so much going on inside my head in terms of writing, there's such a large space in my life taken up by that. I can't imagine it being taken up by a husband and children and writing, and everything getting its due. I don't believe there is room for all of it. I really don't.

I think it's sad, and weird, and strange that [race in casting] is still a thing. It's 2013. Somebody else needs to get their act together.

Perfect is boring and dreams are not real. Just... do. So you think, "I wish I could travel." Great. Sell your crappy car, buy a ticket to Bangkok, and go. Right now. I'm serious.