Top 35 Ellen Pompeo Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Losing love is like organ damage. It’s like dying. The only difference is, death ends. This? It can go on forever.”

— Ellen Pompeo

2. “People love to watch a train wreck, I suppose.”

— Ellen Pompeo

3. “Really, I don’t care if people think I’m too skinny. This is my body. If they don’t like it, screw it.”

— Ellen Pompeo

4. “Women don’t take care of themselves because they take care of everybody else.”

— Ellen Pompeo

5. “Can you get any better than Patrick Dempsey? I don’t think so!”

— Ellen Pompeo

6. “I just don’t want to be self-obsessed.”

— Ellen Pompeo

7. “The trap is when you start to pay attention to that stuff and care, because in six months, they’re going to be looking at someone else. You know how fickle everyone is. They love it, then they hate it, then they love it. So I’m going to enjoy it because it could be over at any minute.”

— Ellen Pompeo

8. “Dr. McDreamy, that’s what I call Patrick’s character. He’s gorgeous, he’s got a great body and he’s got damn fine hair.”

— Ellen Pompeo

9. “I’m the Renee Zellweger now. Jewel is the me now. There is no more Jewel.”

— Ellen Pompeo

10. “I don’t believe in putting on airs. I call it like I see it.”

— Ellen Pompeo

11. “The older you get the more realistic it is that you’re significant other is your significant other. I mean, you’ll always have your girlfriends or your guy friends, but the person you’re married to is usually your No. 1.”

— Ellen Pompeo

12. “I want to teach my daughter the importance of exercising and eating healthy as she grows up.”

— Ellen Pompeo

13. “You know, Boston people are full of sauce.”

— Ellen Pompeo

14. “Desire leaves us heartbroken; it wears us out.”

— Ellen Pompeo

15. “If I’m bringing joy to people and entertaining people as an actor, then I should be grateful for that and act accordingly, you know?”

— Ellen Pompeo

16. “You can’t really judge characters, because that’s when it gets really hard to play them.”

— Ellen Pompeo

17. “I read a lot of nonfiction – especially books about the brain.”

— Ellen Pompeo

18. “I’m not saving anybody’s life, I’m not a teacher, I’m not working for UNICEF. I don’t think I’m some big deal.”

— Ellen Pompeo

19. “My daily schedule is quite hectic, but I have to put my health first in order to be the best mom and wife I can be.”

— Ellen Pompeo

20. “There’s a remarkable amount of sexism on TV. When male characters are flawed, they’re interesting, deep and complex. But when female characters are flawed, they’re just a mess. It’s good to put more flawed but interesting female characters out there because it promotes equality.”

— Ellen Pompeo

21. “Medicine is so fascinating.”

— Ellen Pompeo

22. “Where I come from, you don’t just say, ‘Oh, I’m going to become an actor.’ Talk like that and they think you’re crazy.”

— Ellen Pompeo

23. “Being a mother is the most fun job I’ve ever had.”

— Ellen Pompeo

24. “Being a mother is magical.”

— Ellen Pompeo

25. “Cancer is something that touches everyone’s lives.”

— Ellen Pompeo

26. “It’s easy to get lost in the baby. You have to make sure you give your husband attention.”

— Ellen Pompeo

27. “I went up a pants size during my pregnancy.”

— Ellen Pompeo

28. “I am who I am, a Southie.”

— Ellen Pompeo

29. “This is Hollywood. People don’t admit mistakes.”

— Ellen Pompeo

30. “My mother came from an Irish family of 11 kids and, of course, had a sister who was a nun, so I spent time at a convent and with an aunt and uncle who lived in New York and took me to the theater.”

— Ellen Pompeo

31. “Happiness is not that easy to achieve, but having a handsome husband, a beautiful baby, and a great job helps.”

— Ellen Pompeo

32. “I think for any actor to say they don’t like attention is ridiculous. Of course we love attention. But getting attention is different than pretending the attention means something.”

— Ellen Pompeo

33. “Acting can be an amazingly cathartic thing – especially for young girls.”

— Ellen Pompeo

34. “I was never a person who was introduced to junk food.”

— Ellen Pompeo

35. “Thank god Shonda Rhimes had this agenda to make television look like life, to make it look like the real world.”

— Ellen Pompeo

36. “Learning about the way people process information and their emotions is hugely helpful to my work.”

— Ellen Pompeo

37. “I don’t like everybody who I see on TV.”

— Ellen Pompeo

38. “I just worry about the girls who look up to me. I don’t want them to think I starve myself or don’t eat, and that to be like me that’s what they have to do.”

— Ellen Pompeo