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" The secret sauce of the business that I can offer is my creativity, and in order to keep my creativity alive and fresh, I have to pretend that no one is watching the show, that there are no audiences, there are no ratings; I'm just telling a story. "

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" I think I'm most proud of the fact that I have figured out how to exist as both a creative person and artist, and a businesswoman and manager. Because those two things do not go together. "

Shonda Rhimes

Creative

Together

Think

" I want to be able to sing like Whitney Houston did. "

Shonda Rhimes

Want

Houston

" I'd split up with a boyfriend and gone to Vermont to stare at my navel, and then 9/11 happened, and I spent days being scared of what was happening in the world. So I made a list of all the things I wanted to do, and at the top was adopt a baby. Nine months and two days later, I brought my daughter home. "

" I don't identify with her, but I highly admire Eleanor Roosevelt. "

" I keep getting asked how I write about such smart, strong women, and my response is, what's the alternative? Weak, stupid women? They're just normal people, not role models - if you're aspiring to be like any of them, something's a little bit wrong. You may want to dress like one or have her job, but do not aspire to be her! "

" I think that women are raised to believe that they're supposed to want certain things, and so you feel like you're supposed to apologize when you don't want those things. "

" Having a strong sense of self is fundamental to you, no matter what you're doing. I don't care if you're a stay at home mom raising kids or if you're the CEO of a corporation. It's really important for your survival. "

" To lead or to parent means not being liked sometimes. "

" I really do feel like the work and time we spend avoiding having difficult conversations is so much more wasteful and painful and time-consuming than actually having the difficult conversation. "

" There have to be practical steps. There's no point in holding out for a magic door because there are no magic doors. You can dream your life away or actually do what you dream of doing. That's the most valuable advice I can give. "

" Most people, I think, have accepted that it's not up to them to control other people's choices, except, it seems, when it comes to Washington, D.C., where everyone has an opinion about people's uteruses. "

" You have to have more people who don't look like you in the writers room. I try to have some people who don't look like me in my writers room. I think it's important to have a group of voices, of people who can dissent. "

Shonda Rhimes

Group

Look

" I truly feel like my job is to make the shows. That's what I'm paid to do. It's somebody else's job to market them, and it's somebody else's job to pay attention to the ratings, because if I paid attention to all that, my head would explode. "

Shonda Rhimes

Pay

Job

" After I lost weight, I discovered that people found me valuable. Worthy of conversation. A person one could look at. A person one could compliment. A person one could admire. A person. "

Shonda Rhimes

Lost

People

" I would have 47 kids if I thought I could get away with it. I love children. "

" I say it in the writers' room all the time: My black is not your black. What's terrifying is that, just the same way we've all accepted that normal is white, everybody seems to buy into the idea that there's only one way to be black or one way to be Hispanic. That's as damaging as anything else. "

" My father used to say to me, 'The only limit to your success is your own imagination.' I actually believed that - like, I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I might not be an Olympic figure skater. "

Shonda Rhimes

Limit

Success

" I actually really love Twitter - I used to feel angry and insulted when people criticised me or the shows, but now I don't take it too seriously. What I do love is that there's this great direct line to fans. "

" We have people say, 'There's not enough women writers.' I have a writers room that is almost nothing but women over at 'Grey's Anatomy.' "

" In my house, you got in trouble if you didn't speak up. My mom would be furious at us if we went to school and behaved nicely if someone treated us badly. If we got in trouble because we had yelled at them or told them that they were wrong, my mother would be like, 'Good job.' "

" I like working more than I like being at home. Facing that fact is incredibly difficult to handle, because what kind of person likes working more than being at home? "

" My parents are professors; they're intellectual. I spent a lot of time reading books. To me, everyone always looks like they do in your imagination. And in my imagination, the characters always looked like me. "

Shonda Rhimes

Reading

Parents

" If we're not shooting, if we're not filming, if you're not standing on the soundstage, turn off your phone and go live your life. "

" I'm not a person who's interested in getting involved with politics just to get involved with them, and I don't need to. "

" I'm just obsessed with 'Game of Thrones,' especially Arya Stark. And I love 'Orange is the New Black,' although I just want to inhale that all at once. I keep trying to stretch it out, but it's so hard. "

" That first year I was doing 'Grey's,' I didn't know it was possible to fire the creator of a show off their own show, so I didn't behave like somebody who was afraid of being fired. "

" 'Grey's' has this universal, global thing to it. It works all over the world. "

" I binge pretty much everything. If I'm watching something, I'm bingeing it. I binged 'The Good Place' recently. 'Handmaid's Tale.' "

" I like people with their own opinions, and I like people who argue with me. It's very exhausting to be in a room full of people who just nod and smile. "

Shonda Rhimes

Own

Opinions

" I don't think there was a time I ever thought of myself as anything but a writer. I thought I was going to be the next Toni Morrison. "