Shonda Lynn Rhimes is an American television producer, screenwriter, and author. She is best known as the showrunner-creator, head writer, and executive producer-of the television medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, its spin-off Private Practice, and the political thriller series Scandal. Rhimes has also served as the executive producer of the ABC television series Off the Map, How to Get Away with Murder, The Catch, and Grey’s spin-off Station 19. In 2015, she published her first book, a memoir, Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person. In 2017, Netflix said that it had entered into a multi-year development deal with Rhimes, by which all of her future productions will be Netflix Original series.
Some of the best quotes from Shonda Rhimes are listed below.
- “Anyone who tells you they are doing it all perfectly is a liar.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Badassery, I’m discovering, is a new level of confidence-in both yourself and those around you.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Badassery: the practice of knowing one’s own accomplishments and gifts, accepting one’s own accomplishments and gifts, and celebrating one’s own accomplishments.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Because no matter how hard a conversation is, I know that on the other side of that difficult conversation lies peace.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Being a mother brings us face-to-face with ourselves as children, with our mothers as human beings, with our darkest fears of who we really are.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Being a mother is not a job. Stop throwing things at me. I’m sorry but it is not. I find it offensive to motherhood to call being a mother a job.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Being traditional is not traditional anymore.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Ditch the dream. Be a doer, not a dreamer.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Don’t ever feel less than. When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral. Pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Every ‘yes’ changes something in me. Every ‘yes’ is a bit more transformative. Every ‘yes’ sparks some new phase of revolution.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Everything sounds like crap until you are in the right mind-set.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Hate diminishes, love expands.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Her toolbox is full. She has learned to not let go of the pieces of herself that she needs in order to be what someone else wants. She’s learned not to compromise. She’s learned not to settle. She’s learned, as difficult as it is, how to be her own sun.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “I am not lucky. You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard. Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, powerful, engaged people? Are busy doing.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “If I don’t poke my head out of my shell and show people who I am, all anyone will ever think I am is my shell.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “If you want crappy things to stop happening to you, then stop accepting crap and demand something more.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “‘It’s not bragging if you can back it up’, I whisper to myself in the shower every morning. That is my favorite Muhammad Ali quote. If you ask me, Ali invented modern-day swagger.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Losing yourself does not happen all at once. Losing yourself happens one ‘no’ at a time.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Lucky implies I didn’t do anything. Lucky implies something was given to me. Lucky implies that I was handed something I did not earn, that I did not work hard for.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Marriage is a financial partnership. Marriage has nothing to do with love. Love is a choice we can make every day.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Mothers are never off the clock, mothers are never on vacation. Being a mother redefines us, reinvents us, destroys, and rebuilds us.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Not a single woman in the room could handle being told, ‘You’re awesome’. I couldn’t handle being told I am awesome. What in the hell is wrong with us?” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Once I stopped expecting to like it, once I stopped demanding that losing weight be easy or pleasant, once I stopped waiting for the band to start playing, paying attention to what went into my mouth became tolerable.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “One. Word. NO. No is a powerful word.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “People really do not like it when you decide to step off the road and climb the mountain instead. It seems to make even the people who mean well nervous.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Perfect is boring, and dreams are not real. Just DO.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Say YES to accepting any and all acknowledgments of personal fabulous awesomeness with a clear, calm ‘Thank you’ and a confident smile and nothing more.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Saying yes is courage. Saying yes is the sun. Saying yes is life.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Sometimes a broken woman needs the red wine more.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “The goal is that everyone should get to turn on the TV and see someone who looks like them and loves like them. And just as important, everyone should turn on the TV and see someone who doesn’t look like them and love like them.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “There is no list of rules. There is one rule. The rule is: there are no rules.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “There is victory in surrender.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “They tell you: Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Think of them. Heads up, eyes on the target. Running. Full speed. Gravity be damned. Toward that thick layer of glass that is the ceiling. Running, full speed, and crashing. Crashing into that ceiling and falling back.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “This Yes is about giving yourself the permission to shift the focus of what is a priority from what’s good for you over to what makes you feel good.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Volunteer some hours. Focus on something outside yourself. Devote a slice of your energies toward making the world suck less every week.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “We all spend our lives kicking the crap out of ourselves for not being this way or that way, not having this thing or that thing, not being like this person or that person.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “When you negate someone’s compliment, you are telling them they are wrong. You’re telling them they wasted their time.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Who you are today… that’s who you are. Be brave. Be amazing. Be worthy. Be heard.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Yes to everything scary. Yes to everything that takes me out of my comfort zone. Yes to everything that feels like it might be crazy.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “You can quit a job. I can’t quit being a mother. I’m a mother forever.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “You just have to keep moving forward. You just have to keep doing something, seizing the next opportunity, staying open to trying something new.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “You know what happens when all of your dreams come true? Nothing.” – Shonda Rhimes
- “Your body is yours. My body is mine. No one’s body is up for comment. No matter how small, how large, how curvy, how flat. If you love you, then I love you.” – Shonda Rhimes
