Episode 1x00 Pilot: "A Hard Day's Night" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

The game, they say a person either has what it takes to play,
or they don't.
My mother was one of the greats.
Me on the other hand, I'm kinda screwed.

Like I said, I'm screwed.

Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

I can't think of any one reason why I want to be a surgeon.
I can think of a thousand reasons why I should quit.
They make it hard on purpose.
There are lives in our hands.
There comes a moment when it's more than just a game.
And you either take that step forward or turn around and walk away.
I could quit, but here's the thing, I love the playing field.

voiceover while talking to Ellis

So, I made it through my first shift.
We all did.
The other interns are all good people, you'd like them.
I think, I don't know, maybe.
I like them.
Oh and I've changed my mind, I'm not going to sell the house.
I'm gonna keep it.
I'll have to get a couple of roommates but it's home, you know.

Episode 1x01 "The First Cut is the Deepest" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

It's all about lines, the finish line at the end of residency,
waiting in line for a chance at the operating table,
and then there's the most important line..
the line separating you from the people you work with.
It doesn't help to get too familiar.
To make friends.
You need boundaries between you and the rest of the world.
Other people are far too messy.
It's all about lines.
Drawing lines in the sand and praying like hell no one crosses them.

Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

At some point you have to make a decision.

Boundaries don't keep other people out.

They fence you in.

Life is messy, thats how we're made.

So, you can waste your life drawing lines.

Or you can live your life crossing them.

But there are some lines, that are way too dangerous to cross.

Here's what I know, if you're willing to take the chance..

the view from the other side is spectacular.

Episode 1x02 "Winning a Battle, Losing the War" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

We live out our lives on the surgical unit.
Seven days a week, fourteen hours a day.
We're together more than we're apart.
After a while, the ways of residency become the ways of life.
Number one, always keep score.
Number two, do whatever you can to outsmart the other guy.
Number three, don't make friends with the enemy.
oh and yea, number four, everything, everything is a competition.
Whoever said winning wasn't everything, never held a scalpel.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

There's another way to survive this competition.
A way no one ever seems to tell you about.
One you have to learn for yourself.
Number five, it's not about the race at all.
There are no winners or losers.
Victories are counted by the number of lives saved.
And once in a while if you're smart, the life you
save could be your own.

Episode 1x03 "No Mans Land" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Intimacy is a four syllable word for here are my heart and soul
please grind them into hamburger, and enjoy.
It's both desired and feared.
Difficult to live with and impossible to live without.
Intimacy also comes attached to life's three R's:
Relatives, romance and roommates.
There are some things you can't escape and other things
you just don't wanna know.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.
Some kind of a guide that could tell you

when you've crossed the line.
It would be nice if you could see it coming.
But I don't know how you'd fit it on a map.
You take it where you can get it and keep it
as long as you can.
And as for rules, maybe there are none.
Maybe the rules of intimacy are something you
have to define for yourself.

Episode 1x04 "Shake your Groove Thing" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Remember when you were a kid

and your biggest worry was like if
you'd get a bike for your birthday

or if you'd get to eat cookies for breakfast.
Being an adult, totally overrated.
I mean seriously, don't be fooled by

all the hot shoes and the great sex
and the no parents anymore telling you what to do.
Adulthood is responsibility.
Responsibility, it really does suck.
Really,really sucks.
Adults have to be places, and do things

and earn a living and pay the rent.
And if you're training to be a surgeon,

holding a human heart in your hands,
Hello! talk about responsibility.
Kinda makes bikes and cookies look

really, really good doesn't it.
The scariest part about responsibility,

when you screw up and let it
slip right through your fingers.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Responsibility it really does suck.
Unfortunately once you get past the age

of braces and training bras,
responsibility doesn't go away.
It can't be avoided.
Either someone makes us face it, or we suffer the
consequences.
And still adulthood has its perks.
And even the shoes, the sex, the no parents anywhere
telling you what to do, thats pretty damn good.

Episode 1x05 " If Tomorrow Never Comes" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

A couple hundred years ago Benjamin Franklin shared
with the world the secret of his success.
"Never leave that till tomorrow", he said, "which you can do today."
This is the man who discovered electricity.
You'd think more of us would listen to what he had to say.
I don't know why we put things off.
But if I had to guess, I'd say it has a lot to do with fear.
Fear of failure, fear of pain, fear of rejection.
Sometimes the fear is just of making a decision.
Because what if you're wrong..
what if you're making a mistake you can't undo.
Whatever it is we're afraid of, one thing holds true..
that by the time the pain of not doing a thing gets worse than
the fear of doing it, it can feel like we're carrying around a giant tumor..
and you thought I was speaking metaphorically.



Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

The early bird catches the worm.
A stitch in time saves nine.
He who hesitates is lost.
We can't pretend we haven't been told.
We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers
heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time,
heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day.
Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves.
We have to make our own mistakes.
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.

Episode 1x06 "The Self Destruct Button" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Ok anyone who says you can sleep when you die,
tell them to come talk to me after a few months as an intern.
Of course it's not just the job that keeps us up all night.
I mean if life's so hard already, why do we bring more trouble
down on ourselves.
What's up with the need to hit the self destruct button?


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Maybe we like the pain.
Maybe we're wired that way.
Because without it, I don't know.
Maybe we just wouldn't feel real.
What's that saying..
Why do I keep hitting myself with a hammer?
Because it feels so good when I stop.

Episode 1x07 "Save Me" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

You know how when you were a little kid

and you believed in fairytales,
that fantasy of what your life would be,

white dress, prince charming to carry you

away to a castle on a hill.
You'd lie in bed at night and close your eyes

and you had complete and utter faith.
Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming,

they were so close you could taste them.
But eventually you grow up.
One day you open your eyes and the fairytale disappears.
Most people turn to the things and people they can trust.
But the thing is, it's hard to let go of that fairytale entirely.
Cause almost everyone still has that smallest bit

of hope and faith, that one day they'll open their eyes

and it will all come true.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

At the end of the day, faith, is a funny thing.
It turns up when you don't really expect it.
It's like, one day you realize that the fairytale

may be slightly different than you dreamed.
The castle, well it may not be a castle.
And it's not so important that it's happy ever after.
Just that it's happy right now.
See once in a while, once in a blue moon,
people will surprise you.
And once in a while,

people may even take your breath away.

Episode 1x08 "Who's Zoomin' Who" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Secrets can't hide in Science,

medicine has a way of exposing the lies.
Within the walls of the hospital the truth is stripped bare.
How we keep our secrets outside the hospital,

well, that's a little different.
One thing is certain, whatever it is we're trying to hide,
we're never ready for that moment

when the truth gets naked.
That's the problem with secrets..
like misery they love company.
They pile up and up, until they take over, everything.
Until you don't have room for anything else.
Until you're so full of secrets ..
you feel like you're going to burst.

Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

The thing people forget,

is how good it can feel

when you finally set secrets free.
Whether good or bad.
Atleast they're out in the open.
Like it or not.
And once your secrets are out in the open,
you don't have to hide behind them anymore.
The problem with secrets is,

even when you think you're in control,

you're not.

Episode 2x01 "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

To be a good surgeon, you have to think like a surgeon.
Emotions are messy.
Tuck them neatly away and step into a clean, sterile room,
where the procedure is simple.
Cut, suture, close.
But sometimes, you're faced with a cut that won't heal.
A cut that rips it's stitches wide open.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

They say, practice makes perfect.
Theory is, the more you think like a surgeon,
the more you become one.
The better you get at remaining neutral, clinical.
Cut, suture, close.
And the harder it becomes to turn it off..
to stop thinking like a surgeon, and remember what it means
to think like a human being.

Episode 2x02 "Enough is Enough" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

I have an aunt, who whenever she poured anything for you,
would say, 'say when.'
My aunt would say, say when, and of course we never did.
We don't say when because there's something about the possibility
of more.
More tequila, more love, more anything, more is better.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

There's something to be said about a glass half full,
about knowing when to say when,
I think it's a floating line, a barometer of need and desire.
It's entirely up to the individual and depends on what's
being poured.
Sometimes all we want is a taste.
Other times, there's no such thing as enough.
The glass is bottomless..
and all we want is more.

Episode 2x03 "Make me Lose Control" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Surgeons are control freaks.
With a scalpel in your hand, you feel unstoppable.
There's no fear, there's no pain, you're ten feet tall and bullet proof
and then you leave the OR.
And all that perfection, all that beautiful control, just falls to crap.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

No one likes to lose control.
But as a surgeon, there's nothing worse.
It's a sign of weakness, of not being up to the task.
And still there are times when it just gets away from you.
When the world stops spinning and you realize that
your shiny little scalpel isn't gonna save you.
No matter how hard you fight it, you fall
and it's scary as hell.
Except there's an up side to free falling,
you give your friends a chance to catch you.

Episode 2x04 "Deny, Deny, Deny" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

The key to surviving a surgical internship is denial.
We deny that we're tired, deny that we're scared,
we deny how badly we want to succeed and mostly
we deny that we're in denial.
We only see what we want to see and believe what
we want to believe and it works.
We lie to ourselves so much that, after a while the
lies start to seem like the truth.
We deny so much that we can't recognize the truth,
right in front of our faces.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Sometimes reality has a way of sneaking up and biting us in the ass.
And when the dam bursts all you can do is swim.
The world of pretend is a cage not a coccoon.
We can only lie to ourselves for so long.
We are tired, we are scared.
Denying it doesn't change the truth.
Sooner or later we have to put aside our denial and face the world,
head on, guns blazing.
Denial it's not just a river in Egypt, it's a freakin ocean.
So how do you keep from drowning in it?

Episode 2x05 "Bring the Pain" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Pain comes in all forms.
The small twinge, a bit of soreness, random pain.
The normal pains we live with everyday.
Then there's the kind of pain you can't ignore.
A level of pain so great that it blocks out everything else.
Makes the rest of the world fade away.
Until all we can think about is how much we hurt.
How we manage our pain in up to us.
Pain, we anesthetize, ride it out,erase it, ignore it,
and for some of us the best way to manage pain is to just push through it.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

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.
Most of the time pain can be managed.
But sometimes the pain gets you when you least expect it.
Hits way below the belt, and doesn't let up.
Pain you just have to fight through.
Because the truth is, you can't outrun it,
and life always makes more.

Episode 2x06 "Into You Like a Train" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

In general people can be categorized in one of two ways.
Those who love surprises and those who don't.
I.. don't!
I've never met a surgeon that enjoys a surprise.
Because as surgeons, we like to be in the know.
We have to be in the know, because when we aren't..
people die and lawsuits happen.
Am I rambling? I think I'm rambling.
Ok, so my point actually.. and I do have one.
Has nothing to do with surprises or death or lawsuits or even surgeons.
My point is this.. whoever said what you don't know can't hurt you..
was a complete and total moron.
Because for most people I know, not knowing is the worst feeling in the world.
Ok fine, maybe it's the second worst.



Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

As surgeons, there are so many things we have to know.
We have to know we have what it takes.
We have to know how to take care of our patients.
And how to take care of each other.
Eventually we even have to figure out how to take care of ourselves.
As surgeons, we have to be in the know,
but as human beings sometimes it's better to stay in the dark.
Because in the dark there may be fear, but there's also hope.

Episode 2x07 "Something to Talk ABout" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Communication, it's the first thing you really learn in life.
But the thing is once we grow up, learn our words, and really start talking,
the harder it becomes to know what to say or how to ask for what we really need.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

At the end of the day there are some things you just can't help but talk about.
Some things we just don't want to hear.
And some things we say because we can't be silent any longer.
Some things are more than what you say.
They're what you do.
Some things you say because there's no other choice.
Some things you keep to yourself.
And not too often, but every now and then..
somethings simply speak for themselves.

Episode 2x08 "Let it Be" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

In the eighth grade my English class had to read Romeo and Juliet.
Then for extra credit Mrs. Snyder made us act out all the parts.
Sal Scaparillo was Romeo as fate would have it I was Juliet.
All the other girls were jealous.
But I had a slightly different take.
I told Mrs. Snyder that Juliet was an idiot.
For starters she falls for the one guy she knows she can't have,
then she blames fate for her own bad decision.
Mrs. Snyder explained to me that when fate comes into play,
choice sometimes goes out the window.
At the ripe old age of thirteen I was very clear that love like life
is about making choices.
And fate has nothing to do with it.
Everyone thinks it's so romantic, Romeo and Juliet, true love.
How sad.
If Juliet was stupid enough to fall for the enemy, drink a bottle of poison
and got to sleep in a mauseleum, she deserved whatever she got.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Maybe Romeo and Juliet were fated to be together.
But just for a while and then they're time passed.
If they could have known that before hand maybe it all would have been ok.
I told Mrs, Snyder that when I was grown up I would take fate into my own hands.
I wouldn't let some guy drag me down.
Mrs. Snyder said that I'd be lucky if I ever had that kind of passion for someone.
And that if I did, we'd be together forever.
Even now I believe that 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.

Episode 2x09 "Thanks For the Memories" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Gratitude, appreciation, giving thanks.
No matter what words you use it all means the same thing.
Happy, we're supposed to be happy.
Grateful for friends, for family.
Happy to just be alive.
Whether we like it or not.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Maybe we're not supposed ot be happy.
Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy.
Maybe being grateful is recognizing what you have for what it is.
Appreciating small victories.
Admiring the struggles it takes simply to be human.
Maybe we're thankful for the familiar things we know.
And maybe we're thankful for the things we'll never know.
At the end of the day the fact that we have the courage to still be standing..
is reason enough to celebrate.

Episode 2x10 "Much too Much" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

When you were a kid it was Halloween candy.
You hid it from your parents and ate it till you got sick.
In college it was the heady combo of youth, tequila and well you know.
As a surgeon you take as much of the good as you can get.
Because it doesn't come around nearly as often as it should.
Cause good things aren't always what they seem.
Too much of anything, even love, is not always a good thing.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

How do you know how much is too much?
Too much too soon?
Too much information?
Too much fun?
Too much love?
Too much to ask?
and when is it all too much to bear?

Episode 2x11 "Owner of a Lonely Heart" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Forty years ago the Beatles asked the world a simple question.
They wanted to know where all the lonely people came from.
My latest theory is a great many of the lonely people come from hospitals.
More precisely the surgical wing of hospitals.
As surgeons we ignore our own needs so we can meet our patient's needs.
We ignore our friends, and families.
So we can save other peoples friends and families.
Which means that at the end of the day, all we really have is ourselves.
And nothing in this world can make you feel more alone than that.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Four hundred years ago another well known English guy
had an opinion about being alone.
John Dunn, he thought we were never alone.
Of course it was fancier when he said it.
No man is an island entire unto himself.
Boil down that island talk and he just meant
that all anyone needs is someone to step in,
and let us know we're not alone.
And who's to say that someone can't have four legs
Someone to play with or run around with..
or just hang out.

Episode 2x12 "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

It's an urban myth that suicide rates spike around the holidays.
Turns out, they actually go down.
Experts think it's because people are less inclined to off themselves
when surrounded by family.
Ironically that same family togetherness, is thought to be why depression
rates actually do spike at the holidays.
Yea..ok, Izzie doesn't count.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

There's an old proverb that says you can't choose your family.
You take what the fates hand you.
And like them or not, love them or not,
understand them or not..
you cope.
Then there's the school of thought that says the family your born into,
is simply a starting point.
They feed you and clothes you and take care of you.
Until you're ready to go out into the world.
And find your tribe.

Episode 2x13 "Begin the Begin" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Fresh starts, thanks to the calendar, they happen every year.
Just set your watch to January.
Our reward for surviving the holiday season is a new year.
Bringing on the great tradition of new year's resolutions.
Put your past behind you and start over.
It's hard to resist the chance at a new beginning.
A chance to put the problems of last year to bed.

Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Who gets to determine when the old ends and the new begins?
It's not a day on a calendar.
Not a birthday, not a new year.
It's an event, big or small.
Something that changes us, ideally it gives us hope.
A new way of living and looking at the world.
Letting go of old habits, old memories,
what's important is that we never stop believing
we can have a new beginning.
But it's also important to remember,
that amid all the crap are a few things
really worth holding on to.

Episode 2x14 "Tell me Sweet Little Lies" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

As doctors, we're trained to be skeptical.
Because our patients lie to us all the time.
The rule is, every patient is a liar till proven honest.
Lying is bad, or so we're told.
Constantly..from birth.
Honesty is the best policy.
The truth shall set you free.
I chopped down the cherry tree.
Whatever!
The fact is lying, is a necessity.
We lie to ourselves, because the truth..
the truth freaking hurts.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

No matter how hard we try to ignore it,
or deny it, eventually the lies fall away.
Whether we like it or not.
But here's the truth, about the truth,
it hurts..so we lie.

Episode 2x15 "Break on Through" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

In surgery there is a red line on the floor that marks the point
where the hospital goes from being accessible to being off limits
to all but a special few.
Crossing the line unauthorized, is not tolerated.
In general lines are there for a reason.
For safety, for security, for clarity.
If you choose to cross the line you pretty much do so at your own risk.
So why is it, that the bigger the line, the greater the temptation to cross it?


Closing monolgoue: Meredith Grey

We can't help ourselves.
We see a line, we want to cross it.
Maybe it's the thrill of trading the familiar, for the unfamiliar.
A sort of personal dare.
Only problem is, once you've crossed..
it's almost impossible to go back.
But if you do manage to make it back across that line,
you find safety in numbers.

Episode 2x16 "It's the End of the World... Part 1" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

It's a look patient's get in their eyes.
There is a scent a smell of death.
Some kind of sixth sense.
When the great beyond is heading for you, you feel it coming.
What's the one thing you've always dreamed of doing before you die?
Ok, Hello? Clearly not my dream.
See I told you, not my dream!

No closing monologue..to be cont'd

Episode 2x17 "...As We Know It Part 2" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

In hospitals they say you know, you know when you're going to die.

Some doctors say it's a look patients get in their eyes.

Some say there's a scent a smell of death.

Some think there's some kind of sixth sense.

When the great beyond is heading for you, you feel it coming.

Whatever it is it's creepy, because if you know, what do you do about it?

Forget about the fact that you're scared out of your mind..

if you knew this was your last day on earth,

how would you want to spend it?

Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

If you knew this was your last day on earth,
How would you want to spend it?

Episode 2x18 "Yesterday" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

After careful consideration and many sleepless nights, here's what I've decided..
There's no such thing as a grown up.
We move on, we move out, we move away from our families,
and form our own.
But the basic insecurities, the basic fears, and all those old wounds just
grow up with us.
And just when we think that life and circumstance have forced us to truly
once and for all become an adult, your mother says something like that.
Or worse, something like that.
We get bigger, we get taller, we get older, but for the most part we're
still a bunch of kids.
Running around the playground, trying desperately to fit in.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

I've heard that it's possible to grow up.
I've just never met anyone who's actually done it.
Without parents to defy, we break the rules we make for ourselves.
We throw tantrums when things don't go our way.
We whisper secrets with our best friends in the dark.
We look for comfort where we can find it.
And we hope, against all logic, against all experience.
Like children, we never give up hope.

Episode 2x19 "What Have I Done To Deserve This" monologues

Opening monologue: George O'Malley

Ok, so sometimes even the best of us make rash decisions.
Bad decisions, Decisions where you pretty much know you're
going to regret the moment, the minute, especially the morning after.
I mean maybe not regret, regret.
Because atleast, you know, we put ourselves out there.
But still, something inside us decides to do a crazy thing.
A thing, we know will probably turn around and bite us in the ass.
Yet, we do it anyway.
What I'm saying is, we reap what we sow.
What comes around goes around.
It karma and any way you slice it, karma sucks!
Like I was saying pay backs a bitch.


Closing monologue: George O'Malley

One way or another our karma will leave us to face ourselves.
We can look our karma in the eye or we can wait for it to sneak
up on us from behind.
One way or another, our karma will always find us.
And the truth is as surgeons, we have more chances than most
to set the bounds in our favor.
No matter how hard we try we can't escape our karma.
It follows us home.
I guess we can't really complain about karma,
it's not unfair, it's not unexpected, it just evens the score.
And even when we're about to do something we know will tempt karma to bite us in the ass.
Well it goes without saying...we do it anyway.

Episode 2x20 "Band-Aid Covers the Bullet Hole" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

As doctors, patients are always telling us how they would do our jobs.
Just stitch me up, slap a band-aid on it and send me home.
It's easy to suggest a quick solution.
When you don't know much about the problem.
When you don't understand the underlying cause or
just how deep the wound really is.
The first step toward a real cure is to know exactly what the disease is to begin with.
But that's not what people want to hear.
We're supposed to forget the past that landed us here and ignore the future
complications that might arise and go for the quick fix.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

As doctors, as friends, as human beings, we all try to do the best we can.
But the world is full of unexpected twists and turns.
And just when you've gotten the lay of the land,
the ground underneath you shifts, and knocks you off your feet.
If you're lucky, you end up with nothing more than a flesh wound.
Something a band-aid will cover.
But some wounds are deeper than they first appear and require
more than just a quick fix.
With some wounds, you have to rip off the band-aid, let them breathe,
and give them time to heal.

Episode 2x21 "Superstition" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

My college campus has a magic statue.
It's a long standing tradition for students to rub it's nose for good luck.
My freshman roommate really believed in the statue's power and insisted
on visiting it to rub it's nose before every exam.
Studying might have been a better idea, she flunked out in sophomore year.
But the fact is we all have little superstitious things we do.
If it's not believing in magic statues, it's avoiding sidewalk cracks, or
always putting our left shoe on first.
Knock on wood, step on a crack break your mother's back.
The last thing we want to do is offend the Gods.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Find a penny, pick it up and all day long you'll have good luck.
No one wants to pass up a chance for good luck, but does saying it
thirty-three times really help.
Is anyone really listening.
And if no one's listening, why do we bother doing
those strange things at all?
We rely on superstitions because we're smart enough to know
that we don't have all the answers.
And that life works in mysterious ways.
Don't diss the juju, from where ever it comes.

Episode 2x22 "The Name of the Game" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

A good basketball game can have us all on the edge of our seats.
Games are all about glory, pain and the play by play.
And then there are the more solitary games.
The games we each play all by ourselves.
The social games, the mind games.
We use them to pass the time to make life more interesting.
To distract us from what's really going on.
There are those of us who love to play games, any game.
And there are those of us who love to play, a little too much.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Life is not a spectator sport.
Win, lose, or draw:
the game is in progress.
Whether we want it to be or not.
So go ahead, argue with the refs, change the rules,
cheat a little, take a break and tend to your wounds.
But play, play, play hard, play fast, play loose and free.
Play as if there's no tomorrow.
ok, so it's not whether you win or lose..
it's how you play the game.
Right??

Episode 2x23 "Blues for Sister Someone" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

The key to being a successful intern is what we give up.
Sleep, friends, a normal life.
We sacrifice it all for that one amazing moment.
That moment when you can legally call yourself a surgeon.
There are days that make sacrifices seem worth while.
And then there are the days where everything feels like a sacrifice.
And then there are the sacrifices that you can't even figure out..
why you're making.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

A wise man once said, you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice
everything else for it.
What he meant is, nothing comes without a price.
So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you're willing to lose.
Too often, going after what feels good
means letting go of what you know is right.
And letting someone in means abandoning the walls you've spent
a lifetime building.
Of course the toughest sacrifices.. are the ones we don't see coming.
When we don't have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side
or to measure the potential loss..
When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around.
Thats when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bare.

Episode 2x24 "Damage Case" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

We all go through life like bulls in a china shop.
A chip here a crack there.
Doing damage to ourselves, to other people.
The problem is trying to figure out how to control the damage
we've done or has been done to us.
Sometimes the damage catches us by surprise.
Sometimes we think we can fix the damage.
And sometimes the damage is something we can't even see.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

We're all damaged, it seems.
Some of us more than others.
We carry the damage with us from childhood.
Then as grown-ups we give as good as we get.
Ultimately we all do damage.
And then, we set about the business of fixing whatever we can.

Episode 2x25 "17 Seconds" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

In life we are taught that there are seven deadly sins.
We all know the big ones.
Glutony, pride, lust.
But the sin you don't hear much about is anger.
Maybe it's because we think anger is not that dangerous.
That we can control it.
My point is, maybe we don't give anger enough credit.
Maybe it can be a lot more dangerous than we think.
After all when it comes to destructive behavior..
it did make the top seven.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

So what makes anger different from the six other deadly sins?
It's pretty simple really, you give into a sin like envy or pride,
then you only hurt yourself.
Try lust or covetting and you'll only hurt yourself and probably one
or two others.
But anger, anger is the worst.
The mother of all sins.
Not only can anger drive you over the edge,
when it does you can take an awful lot of other people with you.

Episode 2x26 "Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response" monologues

Opening monologue: The Cast

Human beings need a lot of things to feel alive.. Meredith
Family.. George
Love.. Cristina
Sex.. Izzie
But we only need one thing.. Derek
To actually be alive.. Alex
We need a beating heart.. Cristina
When our heart is threatened.. Addison
We respond in one of two ways.. Alex
We either run or.. George
We attack.. Izzie
Theres a scientific term for this.. Richard
Fight.. Alex
Or flight.. Addison
It's instinct.. Bailey
We can't control it.. Meredith
Or can we?... Izzie


Closing monologue: to be cont'd.. no closing monologue

Episode 2x27 "Losing my Religion" monologues

Opening monologue:

no monologues

Closing monologue:

Episode 3x01 "Time Has Come Today" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Fifteen minutes, Fifteen hours..
inside the OR, the best surgeons make time fly.
Outside the OR, however, time takes pleasure in kicking our asses.
For even the strongest of us it seems to play tricks.
Slowing down, hovering, until it freezes.
Leaving us stuck in a moment.
Unable to move in one direction or the other.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

Time Flies.
Time waits for no man.
Time heals all wounds.
All any of us wants, is more time.
Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time.

Episode 3x02 "I am a Tree" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

At any given moment, the brain has 14 billion neurons firing at a speed of 450 miles per hour. We don’t have control over most of them.
When we get a chill... goose bumps.
When we get excited... adrenaline.
The body naturally follows it’s impulses.
Which I think is part of what makes it so hard for us to control ours.
Of course, sometimes we have impulses we would rather not control.
That we later wish we had.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

The body is a slave to it's impulses.
But the thing that makes us human, is what we can control.
After the storm, after the rush, after the heat of the moment has passed..
we can cool off and clean up the messes we've made.
We can try to let go of what was.
Then again...

Episode 3x03 "Sometimes a Fantasy" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

Surgeons usually fantasize about wild and improbable surgeries.
Someone collapses in a restaurant, slice them open with abutter knife.
Replace a valve with a hollowed out stick of carrot.
But every now and then, some other kind of fantasy slips in.
Most of our fantasies dissolve when we wake, banished to the back of our mind,
but sometimes, we're sure, if we try hard enough..
we can live the dream.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

The fantasy is simple, pleasure is good, and twice as much pleasure is better.
That pain is bad, and no pain is better.
But the reality is different.
The reality is that pain is there to tell us something.
And there's only so much pleasure we can take without getting a stomachache,
and that's OK.
Maybe some fantasies are only supposed to live in our dreams.

Episode 3x04 "What I Am" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

At some point during surgical residency,
most interns get a sense of who they are as doctors and the kind of surgeons
they are going to become.
If you ask them they'll tell you..
They're going to be general surgeons, orthopedic surgeons,
neurosurgeons, distinctions that do more than describe their
areas of expertise.
They help define who they are.
Because outside the operating room not only do most surgeons have
no idea who they are, they're afraid to find out.


Closing monologue: Denny Duquette via phone message

Dad, mom, it's me.
I'm calling from Seattle Grace hospital, where the beautiful, talented and
incredibly stubborn Dr. Isobel Stevens, she's just given me a brand new heart
and promised to marry me.
I know we've had our differences and I'm sorry I've been out of touch.
Believe it or not I was..I was trying to make everything better.
I know you're angry, and I hope you'll forgive me.
See as it turns out, sometimes you have to do the wrong thing.
Sometimes you have to make a big mistake, to figure out how to make
things right.
Mistakes are painful, but they're the only way to find out who you really are.
I know who I am now.
I know what I want.
I've got the love of my life, a new heart, and I want you guys to get on the next plane
out here, and meet my girl.
Everything's gonna to be different now.
I promise, from here on out nothings ever gonna to be the same.
I love you.. bye.

Episode 3x05 "Oh, the Guilt" monologues

Opening monologue: Meredith Grey

First do no harm.
As doctors we pledge to live by this oath.
But harm happens and then guilt happens.
And there's no oath on how to deal with that.
Guilt never goes anywhere on it's own.
It brings it's friends doubt and insecurity.


Closing monologue: Meredith Grey

First do no harm, easier said than done.
We can take all the oaths in the world,
But the fact is, most of us, do harm all the time.
Sometimes even when we're trying to help,
we do more harm than good.
And then the guilt rears it's ugly head.
What you do with that guilt is up to you.
We're left with a choice;
either let the guilt throw you back into the behavior that
got you into trouble in the first place,
or learn from the guilt and do your best to move on.