Ellen Pompeo quotes:

The older you get the more realistic it is that you're significant other is your significant other. I mean, you'll always have your girlfriends or your guy friends, but the person you're married to is usually your No. 1.

My mother came from an Irish family of 11 kids and, of course, had a sister who was a nun, so I spent time at a convent and with an aunt and uncle who lived in New York and took me to the theater.

My daily schedule is quite hectic, but I have to put my health first in order to be the best mom and wife I can be.

It's easy to get lost in the baby. You have to make sure you give your husband attention.

Happiness is not that easy to achieve, but having a handsome husband, a beautiful baby, and a great job helps.

There's a remarkable amount of sexism on TV. When male characters are flawed, they're interesting, deep and complex. But when female characters are flawed, they're just a mess. It's good to put more flawed but interesting female characters out there because it promotes equality.

I want to teach my daughter the importance of exercising and eating healthy as she grows up.

Learning about the way people process information and their emotions is hugely helpful to my work.

This is Hollywood. People don't admit mistakes.

I think for any actor to say they don't like attention is ridiculous. Of course we love attention. But getting attention is different than pretending the attention means something.

Dr. McDreamy, that's what I call Patrick's character. He's gorgeous, he's got a great body and he's got damn fine hair.

I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 16, and he was eight years older. My father was furious about this 24-year-old, and I had to hide the relationship.

Really, I don't care if people think I'm too skinny. This is my body. If they don't like it, screw it.

It's gross. We use real brains. I think they're lamb or cow or something. Intestines smell. Brains don't really smell, but what's amazing about the brain is that it's almost like scrambled eggs or soft tofu, almost like a gel. The brain controls so much of what we do, but you could put your finger right through it.

I don't find acting to be a particularly noble way to make a living. I'm not saving anybody's life, I'm not a teacher, I'm not working for UNICEF. I don't think I'm some big deal.

Acting can be an amazingly cathartic thing - especially for young girls.

Being a mother is magical.

If I'm bringing joy to people and entertaining people as an actor, then I should be grateful for that and act accordingly, you know?

Losing love is like organ damage. It's like dying. The only difference is, death ends. This? It can go on forever.

I just don't want to be self-obsessed.

~I got pregnant, and I was like, 'Oh God, it worked! Oh no!' Chris [Ivery, her husband] and I were super happy, then I got terrified! Will I know how to do everything right? Of course, nobody does everything right, but as long as your baby is the priority, that's the best you can do.~

I'm not saving anybody's life, I'm not a teacher, I'm not working for UNICEF. I don't think I'm some big deal.

We're teaching young girls that this is what they should be focusing on: rich and famous girls who are rich and famous for nothing.

Medicine is so fascinating.

I am who I am, a Southie.

Let's play a game of whose life sucks worse ... I'll win, I always win ...

Brains don't really smell, but what's amazing about the brain is that it's almost like scrambled eggs or soft tofu, almost like a gel. The brain controls so much of what we do, but you could put your finger right through it.

I don't believe in putting on airs. I call it like I see it.

You can't really judge characters, because that's when it gets really hard to play them.

It is challenging. I have my days where I feel really guilty that I've been here every day if I have to work a lot. But I am so lucky to live in a country where a girl like me can make this kind of living, achieve her dreams and reach her goals. And I don't think anywhere else in the world can girls have the freedom that we do here to have these amazing careers and be mothers.

The trap is when you start to pay attention to that stuff and care, because in six months, they're going to be looking at someone else. You know how fickle everyone is. They love it, then they hate it, then they love it. So I'm going to enjoy it because it could be over at any minute.

You know, Boston people are full of sauce.

I'm extremely proud of our very, very diverse cast which represents the world that I walk around in every day.. I didn't see it last night when I watched the Emmys.

Thank god Shonda Rhimes had this agenda to make television look like life, to make it look like the real world.

I don't like everybody who I see on TV.

I went up a pants size during my pregnancy.

I was raised by drag queens, practically ... my mother died when I was four-years-old, so I was effectively raised by a bunch of different people. A lot of those people were friends of my sister, Kathleen, who had all these gay friends. She would baby-sit me everyday, and she would take me over to her friend's houses with all kinds of things going on: tucking, and eyebrow drawing, waxing, all sorts of things. I was literally raised by gay men.

Can you get any better than Patrick Dempsey? I don't think so!

Being a mother is the most fun job I've ever had.

I was never a person who was introduced to junk food.

I read a lot of nonfiction - especially books about the brain.

Cancer is something that touches everyone's lives.

I'm the Renee Zellweger now. Jewel is the me now. There is no more Jewel.

I just worry about the girls who look up to me. I don't want them to think I starve myself or don't eat, and that to be like me that's what they have to do.

For me, being able to work with somebody who I don't have to translate my experience to all the time - that's important, because I'm not having to walk someone down the path of racial understanding to tell a story about a woman of color.

Women don't take care of themselves because they take care of everybody else.

Desire leaves us heartbroken; it wears us out.

Where I come from, you don't just say, 'Oh, I'm going to become an actor.' Talk like that and they think you're crazy.

People love to watch a train wreck, I suppose.