Top 120 Shonda Rhimes Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The only limit to success is your own imagination.”

— Shonda Rhimes

2. “Ditch the dream and be a doer.”

— Shonda Rhimes

Featured in: Hustle Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Women, Momentum Quotes

3. “You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.”

— Shonda Rhimes

4. “You are not alone. You are seen. I am with you. You are not alone.”

— Shonda Rhimes

5. “Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.”

— Shonda Rhimes

6. “The expected is what keeps us steady. It’s the unexpected that changes our lives forever.”

— Shonda Rhimes

7. “I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, engaged, powerful people, are busy doing.”

— Shonda Rhimes

8. “At some point, you have to make a decision. 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 lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.”

— Shonda Rhimes

9. “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. Gentle reader, may you never be lucky. 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

10. “Mother is a verb, not a noun.”

— Shonda Rhimes

11. “Nobody got anything great by playing it safe.”

— Shonda Rhimes

12. “Don’t let what he wants eclipse what you need. He is very dreamy,” she says. “But he is not the sun. You are.”

— Shonda Rhimes

13. “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

14. “Boundaries don’t keep other people out, they fence you in.”

— Shonda Rhimes

15. “I happen to like debating, and I like to debate like a lawyer, and I can argue any points to death, and I will.”

— Shonda Rhimes

16. “You want to be a writer? A writer is someone who writes every day, so start writing. You don’t have a job? Get one. Any job. Don’t sit at home waiting for the magical opportunity. Who are you? Prince William? No. Get a job. Go to work. Do something until you can do something else.”

— Shonda Rhimes

17. “Shonda, how do you do it all? The answer is this: I don’t. Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means that I am failing in another area of my life.”

— Shonda Rhimes

18. “Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life.”

— Shonda Rhimes

19. “Mother is not a title. Mother is a verb. It is not who you are. It’s what you do.”

— Shonda Rhimes

20. “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.”

— Shonda Rhimes

21. “When people show you who they are, believe them. I carry that with me a lot. It has served me well.”

— Shonda Rhimes

22. “Because no matter how hard a conversation is, I know that on the other side of that difficult conversation lies peace. Knowledge. An answer delivered. Character is revealed. Truces are formed. Misunderstandings are resolved. Freedom lies across the field of the difficult conversation. An the more difficult the conversation, the greater the freedom.”

— Shonda Rhimes

23. “Cynicism is a choice. Optimism is a better choice.”

— Shonda Rhimes

24. “Do you know who you are? Do you understand what has happened to you? Do you want to live this way?”

— Shonda Rhimes

25. “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

26. “Nobody ever asks a man how he gets stuff done. Nobody asks a man how he finds balance.”

— Shonda Rhimes

27. “Say yes? There’s no way to plan. There’s no way to hide. There’s no way to control this. Not if I am saying yes to everything. 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. Yes to everything that feels out of character. Yes to everything that feels goofy. Yes to everything. Everything. Say yes. Yes.”

— Shonda Rhimes

28. “I remember saying, very almost jokingly, I’m going to take over the world through television, that’s my plan. And I said it to my agent, and I said it to my friends, and I said it to myself.”

— Shonda Rhimes

29. “Making it through the ceiling to the other side was simply a matter of running on a path created by every other woman’s footprints.”

— Shonda Rhimes

30. “We can choose to be afraid of it, to stand there trembling not moving, assuming the worst that can happen or we can step forward into the unknown and assume it will be brilliant.”

— Shonda Rhimes

31. “Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be.”

— Shonda Rhimes

32. “Everyone always says to me, ‘Why aren’t there more people of color on television?’ I’m like, ‘Why don’t you ask a bunch of people who aren’t putting people of color on television why there aren’t more people of color on television?’”

— Shonda Rhimes

33. “Cheesecake will always taste like love.”

— Shonda Rhimes

34. “I am terrible with examples. I can never think of them when anybody asks for an example.”

— Shonda Rhimes

35. “Most of the women I saw on TV didn’t seem like people I actually knew. They felt like ideas of what women are.”

— Shonda Rhimes

36. “A hashtag is not helping. A hashtag is not a movement. A hashtag does not make you Dr King. A hashtag does not change anything. It’s a hashtag.”

— Shonda Rhimes

37. “I don’t understand why people don’t understand that the world of TV should look like the world outside of TV.”

— Shonda Rhimes

38. “I have been saying yes to being fat. Which is WHY I’m now so fat. I’m not a failure; I’m successfully fat. I didn’t let go of the wheel; I just turned the car down the fat road.”

— Shonda Rhimes

39. “I’m a black woman every day, and I’m not confused about that. I’m not worried about that. I don’t need to have a discussion with you about how I feel as a black woman, because I don’t feel disempowered as a black woman.”

— Shonda Rhimes

40. “Ive learned this is a very long marriage doing a television show. I like the people that I work with to be people I enjoy, so you want to cast people who are as excited and enthusiastic as you are.”

— Shonda Rhimes

41. “The Year of Yes, I realize, has become a snowball rolling down a hill. Each yes rolls into the next into the next and the snowball is growing and growing and growing. Every yes changes something in me. Every yes is a bit more transformative. Every yes sparks some new phase of evolution.”

— Shonda Rhimes

42. “You can’t tell stories and really walk in someone’s shoes and not have a love for them, even if they’re doing horrible things.”

— Shonda Rhimes

43. “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

44. “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.”

— Shonda Rhimes

45. “I can’t wait to find out who I will be when next Thanksgiving rolls around.”

— Shonda Rhimes

46. “I was 4 and dictating stories into a tape recorder, and my mom typed them up.”

— Shonda Rhimes

47. “I really don’t think there’s a world in which you can do anything with anybody. Because we’re in the world of the White House, I think there are certain things you can do, and larger things that can happen, but I don’t think you can do anything.”

— Shonda Rhimes

48. “Calling a show a ‘guilty pleasure’ is like saying ‘I’m embarrassed to say I watch it but I can’t stop.’ That’s not a compliment.”

— Shonda Rhimes

49. “I actually like being alone. I spend most evenings reading and taking long baths.”

— Shonda Rhimes

50. “Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass.”

— Shonda Rhimes