The 20 best Grey’s Anatomy speeches that still have us in tears

August 21, 2024

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The 20 best Grey’s Anatomy speeches that still have us in tears

Grey’s Anatomy may stress the ins and outs of being a surgeon — performing life-saving operations, stat; managing hospital emergencies; and facing astronomical pressure — but the series’ most vital moments are the soapy monologues Shonda Rhimes and her writers have sprinkled throughout.

Since debuting in 2005, ABC’s hit medical drama has delivered some of the most powerful speeches on primetime television, many of which have proven to have a long shelf life. For instance, Meredith Grey’s (Ellen Pompeo) “Pick me, choose me, love me” spiel was an instant classic that gained even more traction among the TikTok generation, inspiring countless trends and popularizing the now-ubiquitous term “Pick Me” (a label for someone who craves approval and validation from a specific group).

Rhimes’ clever scripts have provided us with a slew of standout monologues, so we’ve decided to pick our all-time favorites. Read ahead to see which Grey’s Anatomy speeches made the cut.

“Pick me, choose me, love me” (season 2, episode 5)

With Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) deciding whether or not to sign his wife Addison’s (Kate Walsh) divorce papers, Meredith finally puts her foot down to profess her love for Derek “in a really, really big, pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window, unfortunate way that makes me hate you.” She then makes a final plea, asking him to “pick me, choose me, love me.”

Arguably the series’ most famous speech, this monologue was later reworked in the season 19 season finale, where Meredith decides to leave Grey Sloan — and potentially leave behind her beloved Nick (Scott Speedman) — to work in Boston to be near her daughter (Aniela Gumbs). She tells Nick, “I want you in my life if you want to be in my life. But if I have to choose, I’m going to pick me, I pick my kids, and I pick what’s best for us, and I’m not going to beg you to love me.”

“I could see the leaves” (season 5, episode 6)

After sleeping with Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez), Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) compares realizing she’s gay to wearing glasses for the first time. “When I was a kid, I would get these headaches, and I went to the doctor, and they said that I needed glasses. I didn’t understand that, it didn’t make sense to me, because I could see fine,” Erica says while tearing up. “And then I get the glasses, and I put them on, and I’m in the car on the way home, and suddenly I yell because the big green blobs that I had been staring at my whole life, they weren’t big green blobs. They were leaves on trees. I could see the leaves. And I didn’t even know I was missing the leaves. I didn’t even know that leaves existed, and then…leaves! You are glasses.”

She then hilariously delivers a profound declaration: “I am so gay. I am so, so, so gay. I am extremely gay.”

“I see white sandy beaches ” (season 5, episode 23)

With Izzie stevens (Katherine Heigl) heading into surgery for her cancer, Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) begs her to tear up the DNR she signed (“You don’t get to quit!”), but her response is even more heartbreaking: “Where your eyes are supposed to be right now, I see white sandy beaches. And there’s an ocean behind your head, and there are ghosts wandering in and out. I can’t live like this. And I can’t live if something goes wrong in that surgery. I don’t want any extraordinary measures taken to keep me alive. It’s not what I want. I went crazy when Denny signed the DNR because I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand, but now I do and I need you to understand. I don’t want you to go crazy. I want you to have a brilliant career and I hope that I get to be here for that, but if I can’t, I just want to go to the other side. I don’t know what’s there, but it’s got to be better than hospital beds and tubes down my throat. Please. Please don’t cut LVADs. Just…if it comes down to it, just let me go. And right now, kiss me. Please, please just kiss me and close your eyes because the beach is so distracting.”

“I’m a good man in a storm” (season 6, episode 5)

After Callie’s father (Héctor Elizondo) all but disowned his daughter for being gay, Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw) stands up for her love, delivering a rousing speech about how she got her name. She explains that her name isn’t derived from the state but from the battleship, the USS Arizona, where her grandfather died heroically saving 19 men during Pearl Harbor.

“Pretty much everything my father did his whole life was about honoring that sacrifice. I was raised to be a good man in a storm,” Arizona tells Mr. Torres. “Raised to love my country. To love my family. To protect the things I love. When my father, Col. Daniel Robbins, the United States Marine Corp, heard that I was a lesbian, he said he had only one question…. ‘Are you still who I raised you to be?’ My father believes in country the way that you believe in God. And my father is not a man who bends, but he bent for me because I’m his daughter. I’m a good man in a storm. I love your daughter. And I protect the things that I love. Not that I need to. She doesn’t need it. She’s strong and caring and honorable. And she’s who you raised her to be.”

“You don’t get to call me a whore” (season 2, episode 24)

In the midst of the “off” period of their on-again-off-again relationship, Meredith stands up to Derek after he chastises her choices in men. “When I met you, I thought I had found the person that I was going to spend the rest of my life with,” she says with utmost conviction. “I was done. So all the boys, and all the bars, and all the obvious daddy issues, who cared? Because I was done. You left me. You chose Addison. I’m all glued back together now. I make no apologies for how I chose to repair what you broke. You don’t get to call me a whore.”

“I’m not Meredith Grey” (season 2, episode 25)

With their co-workers in ear’s reach, Addison finally snaps over being the other woman in her own marriage with Derek. “I want you to care. I sleep with your best friend and you walk away. He comes out here from New York and rubs it in your face, and still, you get a good night’s sleep,” she says to him. “What do I have to do? Oh, I know. Maybe what I should do is go out on a date with the vet, because that seems to be something that sends you into a blind rage. But, oh wait, that won’t work either because I’m not Meredith Grey!”

“I’m in the middle of a divorce” (season 6, episode 11)

When a fellow doctor asks Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) out for lunch, she lays out the intricacies of her life, plain and simple: “I’m in the middle of a divorce. People call me the Nazi, and it’s not because of my ice-blue eyes. I spend 12 hours a day carving people up and I like it. I have a child and I have no room for casual anything. I’m angry all of the time, and deeply confused because a lot of people in my life let me down recently — one of them was me. It’s devastating but not completely because it turns out, I like sleeping crosswise in the bed and not having to shave my legs. My 3-year-old used to be potty trained and now he isn’t because his father no longer lives with us and his world no longer makes sense and the only thing he thinks he can control is his bladder. So, he urinates in a lot of places you’d wish he wouldn’t urinate. You want lunch or you wanna show me the scan?”

“You’re my person” (season 2, episode 1)

When Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) tries to schedule her appointment for an abortion, she is only able to confirm it if she has a designated emergency contact. Sitting down at a bar, Cristina tells her new friend Meredith that she put her name down as her emergency contact, giving a new meaning to the saying, “You’re my person.” After Meredith leans her head on Cristina’s shoulder, Cristina wryly says, “You realize this constitutes hugging,” before Meredith replies with, “Shut up, I’m your person.”

“My dreams are coming true” (season 7, episode 20)

Ahead of her and Callie’s wedding, Arizona laments the loss of her brother and his absence at her impending nuptials. “When I came out to my brother, he asked me if that meant that I was gonna marry a chick. And when I said, ‘Yes,’ he had this big smile and he said, ‘I’m gonna dance so hard at your wedding,'” Arizona recalls while shedding tears. “My dreams are coming true, dreams I didn’t even know that I had, but my brother’s not here. He’s missing it… I need a minute to miss my brother.”

“The three words” (season 5, episode 21)

Frustrated over Owen Hunt’s (Kevin McKidd) curt responses during their break, Cristina confronts him, and he passes her a piece of paper filled with some three-word sentences suggested by his therapist. “They’re all three-word sentences so I could have something to say to you instead of the three words that are…that are killing me,” he reveals. “The three words that you know I feel but I can’t say them, because it would be cruel to say them, because I am no good for you. I don’t wanna torture you. I don’t wanna look at you longingly when I know I can’t be with you. So, yeah, I’m smiling and I’m saying, ‘Take care now.’ I’m letting you off the hook…. I’m just trying to make it right.”

“Today’s the day my life begins” (season 5, episode 22)

During their impromptu wedding, Alex’s vows to Izzie detail his journey into becoming a man: “Today’s the day my life begins. All my life I’ve been just me, just a smart-mouth kid. Today, I become a man. Today, I become a husband. Today, I become accountable to someone other than myself. Today, I become accountable to you, to our future, to all the possibilities that our marriage has to offer. Together, no matter what happens, I’ll be ready. For anything, for everything. To take on life, to take on love, to take on possibility and responsibility. Today, Izzie Stevens, our life together begins. And I, for one, can’t wait.”

“I don’t build houses” (season 4, episode 17)

With Derek dating Nurse Rose (Lauren Stamile), Meredith makes a move for his heart, using candles to build a life-sized blueprint of their future home. However, Derek showing up late makes Meredith spiral with conflicting emotions. “I had this whole thing about ‘I was going to build us a house,’ but I don’t build houses because I’m a surgeon,” she cries out. “And now I’m here feeling like a lame-ass loser. I got all whole and healed and you don’t show up, and now it’s all ruined because you took so long to come home and I couldn’t even find that bottle of champagne…. I don’t know if I trust you. I wanna trust you, but I don’t know if I do, so I’m just gonna try. I’m gonna try and trust you because I believe that we can be extraordinary together rather than ordinary apart.”

“Give me my dad” (season 6, episode 4)

When their father needs a liver transplant, Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh) pleads with Meredith to help save him, despite her sister having hostile feelings toward him. “You have his blood. And I know that he’s not your dad. I know that he was never there for you. And I would never ask you to give him anything. He doesn’t deserve a thing from you. He doesn’t. But he’s…he’s gonna die, Meredith,” she says. “And so I’m asking you to give something to me. I’m asking…I am asking you to give me my dad. Because as crappy as he was to you, God, he was wonderful to me. He never missed a single dance recital. He was there at my 5th-grade graduation. What is that? That’s not even real. I know he’s not your dad, I know that. But, somehow, you have his blood and I don’t. So I’m asking you…give me my dad.”

“My hands felt his heart stop beating” (season 5, episode 7)

When Owen accuses Cristina of going into medicine for the wrong reasons, she shares the story of how her father died, showing a rare vulnerability: “My dad died when I was 9. In a car accident, I was with him in the car. While we waited for the ambulance, I tried to keep his chest closed, so he wouldn’t bleed so much. When he died, my hands felt his heart stop beating. That’s why I do this.”

“What about me?” (season 2, episode 25)

With Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) possibly losing the heart transplant to another patient, Izzie begs him to let her cut his LVAD wire. When Denny says he’s “going to be all right,” she responds: “What about me? What about me when you go to the light? You’ll be ok, you’ll be fine, but what about me? So don’t do it for yourself, do it for me…. You have to do this for me or I’ll never be able to forgive you!”

Denny: “For dying?”
Izzie: “No! For making me love you!”

“You don’t freeze, you move forward” (season 5, episode 19)

During his proposal to Meredith, Derek plasters brain scans of every memorable case he worked on with her inside the famed elevator that serves as a focal point of their relationship. “If there’s a crisis, you don’t freeze. You move forward. You get the rest of us to move forward because you’ve seen worse, you’ve survived worse. And you know we’ll survive, too,” he tells her. “You say you’re all dark and twisty. That’s not a flaw, it’s a strength. It makes you who you are. I’m not gonna get down on one knee. I’m not gonna ask a question. I love you, Meredith Grey. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“I love you” (season 8, episode 22)

Lexie professes her love for Mark Sloan (Eric Dane), but it comes too little too late as both die shortly after this. “I love you and I have been trying not to say it,” she says. “I have been trying so hard to just mash it down and ignore it and not say it…. I am so in love with you. And you’re in me. It’s like you’re a disease. It’s like I am infected by Mark Sloan. And I just can’t…I can’t think about anything or anybody, and I can’t sleep. I can’t breathe. I can’t eat. And I love you.”

“He is not the sun” (season 10, episode 24)

Before Cristina leaves the hospital (and the show), she reminds Meredith not to let Derek “eclipse” her: “You are a gifted surgeon with an extraordinary mind. Don’t let what he wants eclipse what you need. He’s very dreamy. But he is not the sun. You are.”

“I’m out of debt” (season 1, episode 4)

After Alex smears the locker room with photocopies of Izzie’s Bethany Whisper ads, she is able to shut him up pretty quickly.

“You wanna see it? Fine, let’s take a look at that tattoo up close and personal, shall we?” Izzie says while angrily taking off her clothes. “What are these? Oh, my God, breasts! How does anybody practice medicine hauling these things around? And what have we got back here? Let’s see if I remember my anatomy. Glutes, right? Let’s study them, shall we? Gather around and check out the booty that put Izzie Stevens through med school. Have you had enough or should I continue because I have a few more very interesting tattoos? You wanna call me Dr. Model? That’s fine. Just remember that while you’re still sitting on $200 grand of student loans, I’m out of debt.”

“Guys like you don’t see girls like me” (season 4, episode 8)

When an old flame pops up in the hospital, Bailey feels as small as she did in high school, taking that frustration out on Derek. “Guys like you who don’t see girls like me. We don’t exist for you. We exist to do your homework. We exist to build your ego up. I am a successful married mother. I am chief resident. I am chief resident of a major metropolitan hospital. I’m a surgeon who saved his life today. And he still doesn’t see me. I may as well still be that high school girl with the mushroom haircut and the coke bottle glasses and the band uniform. The girl who didn’t get to go to the homecoming dance ’cause it didn’t even occur to him to ask me. All those late nights tutoring him, and it didn’t even occur to him to ask.”

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The 20 best Grey’s Anatomy speeches that still have us in tears

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