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" When people show you who they are, believe them. I carry that with me a lot. It has served me well. "
Shonda Rhimes
Show
Carry
Me
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" The way I write my shows, every character is its own organic thing. No character has a life at all until I see it played by somebody. "
Shonda Rhimes
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I See
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" I think my goal is to find a way to spend all of my time writing. I mean, sort of; true success is I'm doing nothing but writing if I do my job correctly. "
Shonda Rhimes
Success
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Goal
" A woman who doesn't want to have kids is sort of a mystery to people. That's a question they're asked the minute they get married, it's a question they're asked constantly, 'Don't you want to have kids?' And I feel like that's completely unfair. "
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" People expect me to be, first and foremost, a storyteller. I lead by telling stories. "
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First
People
" 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. "
Shonda Rhimes
Life
Advice
Door
" 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
Me
Look
" When the press began asking me for interviews, I freaked out. My instinct is to hide. "
Shonda Rhimes
Hide
Asking
Instinct
" The idea that the more you hide something, the more it becomes something that's supposed to feel shameful is very true. "
Shonda Rhimes
True
Feel
Hide
" My favorite thing to do is rip the covers off a script when reading for writers to hire and make everybody read without names on the covers of the script. I can't tell you how many times my writers, women and men, will pick people of color and women much more often than they would with a cover on the script. "
Shonda Rhimes
Color
People
Men
" 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. "
Shonda Rhimes
Women
Believe
Feel
" 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. "
Shonda Rhimes
Care
Strong
Mom
" My poor children have been the subject of all of my experiments. We're still doing what I call 'Amish summers' where I turn off all electronics and pack away all their computers and stuff and watch them scream for a while until they settle down into, like, an electronic-free summer. "
Shonda Rhimes
Children
Computers
Down
" I've spent more time on Hillary Clinton's Flickr page than any other human being on the planet. "
Shonda Rhimes
Human
Time
Page
" I want to be able to sing like Whitney Houston did. "
Shonda Rhimes
Like
Want
Houston
" 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. "
Shonda Rhimes
Time
Black
Hispanic
" You don't necessarily have to watch something for 14 seasons. It's not necessarily the way everything's supposed to be. "
Shonda Rhimes
Way
Watch
Seasons
" 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. "
Shonda Rhimes
Time
Feel
Conversation
" 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.' "
Shonda Rhimes
Speak
Good
School
" 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
Like
Pay
Job
" 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. "
Shonda Rhimes
Going
Time
Myself
" When I'm hard at work, when I'm deep in it, there is no other feeling. For me, my work is at all times building a nation out of thin air. It is manning the troops. It is painting a canvas. It is hitting every high note. It is running a marathon. It is being Beyonce. And it is all of those things at the same time. "
Shonda Rhimes
Deep
Me
Work
" When you help make people healthier, it makes the nation healthier; it makes the world healthier. It makes the economy healthier. "
Shonda Rhimes
You
World
People
" I don't get to watch a lot of TV, mainly because I'm busy working. And I pretty much try not to watch very much television at all, even American television, until I'm done with a season, because things start to creep into my head otherwise. "
Shonda Rhimes
Busy
American
Television
" Most writing staffs have this crazy high turnover, and then everyone's really miserable, and I don't understand that. I don't know why you don't grow people to then be able to take over as you. That's how I can have more shows. "
Shonda Rhimes
Writing
Crazy
People
" Italy during Shakespeare's time had citizens of all cultures and colors. To pretend that it did not is ignorance. And I don't waste my time on ignorance. "
Shonda Rhimes
Cultures
Italy
Time
" What I found fascinating for me was, I've never gotten so much approval and accolades and warmth and congratulations as when I had a guy on my arm that people thought I was going to marry. It was amazing. I mean, nobody congratulated me that hard when I had my three children. "
Shonda Rhimes
People
Thought
Children
" I actually like being alone. I spend most evenings reading and taking long baths. "
Shonda Rhimes
Reading
Alone
Being Alone
" I don't know that I think women have to throw out the fairy tale ending. I just think they have to decide what their fairy tale ending is - and not go with the standard one that everyone's told them they're supposed to have. "
Shonda Rhimes
Ending
Women
Fairy Tale
" I've never personally had to use a Planned Parenthood. But I have many friends who have and do and did, and I think it's important that that access be there for everyone. "
Shonda Rhimes
Never
Think
Friends
" I believe that good television should be challenging and frustrating and maddening and thrilling. If you just want to see people who look like you and think like you and do what you would do in any given situation, you'd have to stop looking at TV and start looking in a mirror. But would that be as much fun? "
Shonda Rhimes
Good
Think
People