If you’re a fan of Grey’s Anatomy or other medical dramas, you’ll enjoy these meaningful Meredith Grey quotes we’ve gathered.
Grey’s Anatomy is one of the best-ever medical dramas aired on television. It’s right up there with House, The Good Doctor, and more.
Meredith Grey is the series’s titular character, and her personality is as complicated as learning medicine. She’s an emotionally complex person who knows how to empathize with others, and though she struggles, she tries to understand herself a bit more, too.
Grey’s Anatomy shows how much hard work and dedication are needed to be a good doctor. However, digging deeper into Meredith Grey’s personality, we also learn how to fight for what we love, voice our opinions, and adapt to this ever-changing world.
Meredith Grey is no doubt a character worth getting to know. If you’re a fan of hers, you’ll love the quotes we’ve listed below!
And don’t forget to check out these Grey’s Anatomy quotes and Cristina Yang quotes.
Best Meredith Grey Quotes
1. “Time waits for no man. Time heals all wounds. All any of us want is more time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time.”
2. “I think you can’t wait for someone to fly underneath you and save your life. I think you have to save yourself.”
3. “We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant. That knowing is better than wondering. That waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst, most intractable mistake, beats the hell out of never trying.”
4. “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. Whatever it takes, just find your voice, and when you do, fill the damn silence.”
5. “They say death is hardest on the living. It’s tough to actually say goodbye. Sometimes it’s impossible. You never really stop feeling the loss. It’s what makes things so bittersweet. We leave little bits of ourselves behind, little reminders. A lifetime of memories, photos, and trinkets. Things to remember us by even when we’re gone.”
6. “Okay, here it is. Your choice, it’s simple: her or me. And I’m sure she’s 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. So pick me. Choose me. Love me.”
Famous Meredith Grey Lines to Revisit
7. “So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out. And decide.”
8. “What’s worse? New wounds, which are so horribly painful, or old wounds that should have healed years ago and never did? Maybe our old wounds teach us something. They remind us where we’ve been and what we’ve overcome. They teach us lessons about what to avoid in the future. That’s what we like to think, but that’s not the way it is, is it? Some things we just have to learn over and over and over again.”
9. “Too often, the thing you want most is the one thing you can’t have. Desire leaves us heartbroken. It wears us out. Desire can wreck your life. But as tough as wanting something can be, the people who suffer the most are those who don’t know what they want.”
10. “Just like we need food and water, humans need each other. A brain study revealed that when placed in an MRI, a patient’s reward center lit up when another person sat in the room. Neurons fire when talking to someone, or thinking about someone, and they go haywire when we hold someone’s hand. Our brains and bodies are actually programmed to seek each other out and connect. So then, why do so many people prefer being alone? Why do we often run for the hills when we feel the slightest connection? Why do we feel compelled to fight what we’re hardwired to do? Maybe it’s because when we find someone or something to hold on to, that feeling becomes like air. And we’re terrified we’re going to lose it. And trust me, you can get pretty good at the alone thing. But most things are better when they’re shared with someone else.”
Meredith Grey Quotes on Love
11. “The thing about love is, when it’s good, it’s so very good, and when it’s bad, it hurts so much.”
12. “When we follow our hearts, when we choose not to settle, 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.”
13. “You think that true love is the only thing that could crush your heart, the thing that could take your life and light it up or destroy it.”
14. “Even now, I believe, for the most part, love is about choices. It’s about putting down the poison and the dagger and making your own happy ending, most of the time, and that sometimes despite all your best choices and all your best intentions, fate wins anyway.”
15. “We’re friends, real friends, and that means no matter how long it takes when you finally decide to look back, I’ll still be here.”
Wise Meredith Grey Quotes That’ll Teach You About Life and Change
16. “Boundaries don’t keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That’s how we’re made. So, you can waste your life drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.”
17. “There’s an end to every storm. Once all the trees have been uprooted. Once all the houses have been ripped apart. The wind will hush, the clouds will part, the rain will stop, and the sky will clear in an instant. But only then, in those quiet moments after the storm, do we learn who was strong enough to survive it.”
18. “Sometimes it takes a huge loss to remind you of what you care about the most. Sometimes you find yourself becoming stronger as a result, wiser, and better to deal with the next big disaster that comes along. Sometimes but not always.”
19. “When the ground gives way, and your world collapses, maybe you just need to have faith. And trust that you can survive this. Maybe you just need to hold on tight. And no matter what, don’t let go.”
20. “Change. We don’t like it. We fear it, but we can’t stop it from coming. We either adapt to change or we get left behind. It hurts to grow; anybody who tells you it doesn’t is lying, but here’s the truth sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And sometimes, oh, sometimes, change is good. Sometimes change is everything.”
21. “If there’s just one piece of advice I can give you, it’s this. When there’s something you really want, fight for it—don’t give up no matter how hopeless it seems. And when you’ve lost hope, ask yourself if, 10 years from now, you’re gonna wish you gave it just one more shot. Because the best things in life, they don’t come free.”
22. “You don’t have to be tough every minute of every day. It’s okay to let down your guard. In fact, there are moments when it’s the best thing you can possibly do—as long as you choose your moments wisely.”
23. “We have to keep reinventing ourselves, almost every minute, because the world can change in an instant.”
24. “Funny, isn’t it, the way memory works? The things you can’t quite remember, and the things you can never forget.”
25. “You got to wonder why we cling to our expectations because the expected is just what keeps us steady. The expected’s just the beginning, the unexpected is what changes our lives.”
26. “Just when we think we’ve figured things out, the universe throws us a curveball. So we have to improvise. We find happiness in unexpected places. We find our way back to the things that matter the most. The universe is funny that way, sometimes it just has a way of making sure we wind up exactly where we belong.”
Meredith Grey Quotes About Pain and Fear
27. “Letting go is the easy part. It’s the moving on that’s painful. So sometimes we fight it, trying to keep things the same. Things can’t stay the same, though. At some point, you just have to let it go. Move on. Because no matter how painful it is, it’s the only way we grow.”
28. “Some wounds we carry with us everywhere, and though the cut’s long gone, the pain still lingers.”
29. “Pain, you just have to fight through, because the truth is you can’t outrun it, and life always makes more.”
30. “Sometimes when you think the storm has passed, you realize you were just in the eye of it.”
31. “Pain comes in all forms. The small twinge, a bit of soreness, the random pain. The normal pains we live with every day. Then there’s the kind of pain you can’t ignore. A level of pain so great that it blocks out everything else, and makes the rest of your world fade away until all we can think about is how much we hurt. How we manage our pain is up to us. Pain. We anesthetize, ride it out, embrace it, ignore it, and for some of us, the best way to manage pain is to just push through it.”
32. “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.”
33. “Pain: you just have to ride it out, hope it goes away on its own, hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions, no easy answers. You just breathe deep and wait for it to subside.”
Funny Meredith Grey Quotes
34. “We’re adults. How did that happen, and how can we make it stop?”
35. “Being an adult: totally overrated. I mean, seriously, don’t be fooled by the hot shoes and great sex and no parents anywhere telling you what to do. Being an adult is a responsibility. Responsibility really does suck. Adults have to be places and do things and earn a living and pay the rent.”
36. “Intimacy is a four-syllable word for, ‘Here is my heart and soul, please grind them into hamburger, and enjoy.’”
37. “Not everybody has to be happy all the time. That’s not mental health. That’s crap.”
More Meredith Grey Quotes for Fans of Grey’s Anatomy
38. “We take our miracles where we find them. We reach across the gap, and sometimes, against all odds, against all logic, we touch.”
39. “Who gets to determine when the old ends and the new begins?”
40. “We all have heroes. People we look up to. People we aspire to be, who teach us how to be greater than we are because they are greater than we are. They’re great if we don’t look too closely. ‘Cause if we get too close, we realize heroes are just regular people. And regular people can fail us.”
In Your Opinion, What Is Meredith Grey’s Most Impactful Quote?
Grey’s Anatomy is a medical drama. However, as we follow Meredith and her colleague’s journey from when they were residents to practitioners, we understand that, in a way, it’s also a story about growth and responsibility.
Since the first season, we grew and learned with each character, especially Meredith. Through her, we understand that adulthood comes with seemingly never-ending responsibilities, that love can bring both joy and pain, and that it’s okay not to be happy all the time.
Often, as kids, we want to be adults in the quickest way possible; we think we’ll get all the freedom to do as we wish to then. Yet, now that we’re adults, all we want to do is to go back to being kids—no bills to pay, no responsibilities, and no heartache!
We also get a peek at Meredith’s love life throughout Grey’s Anatomy. Yes, Meredith got all the butterflies when she was with Derek, but more than that, she also learned about the pain of having a special someone.
Lastly, Meredith Grey teaches us that pain is normal—a part of life. It’s hard, but it’s the only way for us to grow and get stronger.
Indeed, there is more to Meredith Grey than what’s presented on the outside. With that, we hope we were able to give you a glimpse of her true personality through this collection of her best quotes from the series!
