Shonda Rhimes Quotes (13 Quotes)

This isn't a traditional medical drama. I've always said from the beginning, we're a relationship show with surgery. It's never about the patients. It's about how the doctors feel about the patients.

They wouldn't shut up about it. 'He's totally an alcoholic and here's why.' I hate them sometimes. Especially when they are right. Because Richard is totally an alcoholic and now I see why.

It's incredibly encouraging that our viewers haven't gotten hung up on the race thing. It's not about the fact that she's Asian and he's black. It's about the fact that she's a slob, and he's a neat freak. That's what the whole relationship is all about.

I don't see myself lessening the narration for Meredith. Meredith is wonderful and she's got a great voice and it's lovely to see the world through a specific set of eyes. That's important to the show.

It's that time in your life when you literally don't know if what you're going to do is going to work or not, what your future is, if you're going to make it.

I can feel it when there's too much medical and not enough personal, and that's the most important balance to keep. We've done episodes where there's a ton of personal and not very much medical. Works just fine. But when the medical sort of overtakes the personal, the show doesn't feel like the show.

What I find interesting is that there are some people out there who take the show very seriously. But then I think about how strongly I felt about 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and how emotional I was about what happened to those characters. So going from being a fan to somebody who has her own show, I definitely respect it. You come into people's homes in a very personal way on a weekly basis. They get involved. But the general success of the show, that sort of loyalty and rage over why did you let Meredith and George sleep together, it's fantastic but it's not something I necessarily expected.

If you haven't seen the show, it's very easy to figure out what's going on. The stories that are there, the relationships that are there are very clear.

For us, not having a time slot last year, and now all of you watching ... has been great.

You could. And I think it says that's bad and it's black and it's a code, honestly.

Being after 'Desperate Housewives' has allowed a large number of people to discover our show. But they stay and come back each week because these characters feel like people you know. And no matter what race they are, you see yourself in their problems.

The Web allows people to know our names and what we look like. As a writer, you don't expect to be recognizable to anybody. And it's certainly not your goal. But I spent so much time wishing to have the show, and wishing that it would be a success, that I certainly can't complain about anything that happens after that. The viewers feel a little bit a part of the writer's room in that sense.

I'm a post-Civil Rights baby. I'm not trying to make a point. This is just the way the world looks now.