Poker Face (Season 8, Episode 6)

As babies, we were easy.  One cry meant you were hungry.  Another meant you were tired.  It's only as adults that we become difficult.  We start to hide our feelings - put up walls.  It gets to the point where we never really know how anyone thinks or feels.  Without meaning to, we become masters of disguise.

It's not always easy to speak your mind.  Sometimes you need to be forced to do it.  Sometimes it's better to just keep things to yourself, though.  Play dumb.  Even when your whole body is aching to come clean.  So you shut your mouth, keep the secret, and find other ways to make yourself happy.

Love, Loss and Legacy (Season 8, Episode 5)

The human body is designed to compensate for loss.  It adapts, so it no longer needs the thing it can't have. But sometimes, the loss is too great, and the body can't compensate on its own.  That's when surgeons get involved.

We're so hopeful at the beginning of things.  It seems like there is only a world to be gained, not lost.  They say the inability to accept loss is a form of insanity.  It's probably true.  But sometimes, it's the only way to stay alive.

What is it About Men? (Season 8, Episode 4)

There are distinct differences between male and female brains.  Female brains have a larger hippocampus, which usually makes them better at retention and memory.  Male brains have a bigger parietal cortex, which helps when fending off an attack.  Male brains confront challenges different than female brains.  Women are hardwired to communicate with language, detail, empathy.  Men?  Not so much.  It doesn't mean that we're any less capable of emotion.  We can talk about our feelings.  It's just that, most of the time, we'd really rather not.

Be a man!  People say it all the time, but what does that even mean?  Is it about strength?  Is it about sacrifice?  Is it about winning?  Maybe it's simpler than that.  You have to know when not to "man up."  Sometimes it takes a real man to set his ego aside, admit defeat, and simply start all over again.

Take the Lead (Season 8, Episode 3)

You work, you study, you prepare. Months and years, leading to one day.  The day when you step up.  On that day, you have to be ready for everything.  But there's one thing you can never quite prepare for.  The day when you step down.

Sometimes, it happens in an instant.  We step up.  We become a leader.  We see a path forward.  We see a path, and we take it.  Even when we have no idea where we're going.

She's Gone (Season 8, Episode 2)

When my mother left my father, she didn't tell him she was leaving and taking me with her until we'd landed on the other side of the country.  In those days, it was called "family troubles".  Today, it'd be called kidnapping.

You think that true love is the only thing that can crush your heart.  The thing that will take your life and light it up... or destroy it.  Then, you become a mother.

Free Falling (Season 8, Episode 1)

Even good marriages fail.  One minute you're standing on solid ground, the next minute... you're not.  There's always two versions - yours, and theirs.  Both versions start the same way, though.  Both start with two people falling in love.

Nobody gets married thinking it's going to fail.  You think yours is the one that's going to make it.  And so it always comes as a shock - the moment when you realize it's over.  One minute you're standing on solid ground.  The next minute, you're not.

Do you have what it takes?  If your marriage is in trouble, can you weather the storm?  When the ground gives way and your world collapses, maybe you just need to have faith, and trust that you can survive this together.  Maybe you just need to hold on tight.  And no matter what, don't let go.

Unaccompanied Minor (Season 7, Episode 22)

I always said I'd be happier alone.  I'd have my work, my friends, but, someone in your life all the time?  More trouble than it's worth.  Apparently, I got over it. 

There's a reason I said I'd be happy alone.  It wasn't 'cause I thought I'd be happy alone.  It was because I thought if I loved someone, and then it fell apart, I might not make it.  It's easier to be alone, because what if you learn that you need love, and then you don't have it?  What if you like it, and lean on it; what if you shape your life around it, and then, it falls apart.  Can you even survive that kind of pain?  Losing love is like organ damage.  It's like dying.  The only difference is, death ends.  This, it could go on forever.

I Will Survive (Season 7, Episode 21)

We've all heard the saying.  It's one of those things we learn in seventh grade science class - adapt, or die.  Adapting isn't easy, though, you have to fight your competition, fend off their attacks, and sometimes, you have to kill.  You do what you need to do to survive. 

Adapt, or die.  As many times as we've heard it, the lesson doesn't get easier.  Problem is, we're human.  We want more than just to survive.  We want love.  We want success.  We want to be the best that we can be.  So we fight like hell to get those things.  Anything else feels, like death.

White Wedding (Season 7, Episode 20)

Germs. Disease.  Toxins.  Our bodies encounter dangers all the time.  Just beneath the surface.  Hidden.  Whether you realize it or not, your body is constantly protecting itself.  The body knows when it's encountered something that doesn't belong.  The body detects the invader, it releases its white blood cells, and it attacks.

Just when we think we've figured things out, the universe throws us a curve ball.  So we have to improvise.  We find happiness in unexpected places.  We find our way back to the things that matter the most.  The universe is funny that way.  Sometimes it just has a way of making sure we wind up exactly where we belong.

It's a Long Way Back (Season 2, Episode 19)

After a trauma, your body is at it's most vulnerable.  Response time is critical, so you're suddenly surrounded by people - doctors, nurses, specialists, technicians.  Surgery is a team sport - everyone pushing for the finish line, putting you back together again.  But surgery is a trauma in and of itself and once it's over, the real healing begins.  We call it recovery.  Recovery is not a team sport.  It's a solitary distance run.  It's long, it's exhausting, and it's lonely as hell.

The length of your recovery is determined by the extent of your injuries.  And it's not always successful.  No matter how hard we work at it, some wounds might never fully heal.  You might have to adjust to a whole new way of living.  Things may have changed too rapidly to ever go back to what they were.  You might not even recognize yourself.  It's like you haven't recovered anything at all.  You're a whole new person, with a whole new life.

Song Beneath the Song (Season 7, Episode 18)

(The Music Episode)

Callie speaking:

The brain is the human body's most mysterious organ.  It learns.  It changes.  It adapts.  It tells us what we see.  What we hear.  It lets us feel love.  I think it holds our soul.  But no matter how much research we do, no one can really say how all of that delicate grey matter inside our skull works.  And when it's hurt, when the human brain is traumatized, well, that's when it gets even more mysterious.

What Have I Done to Deserve This? (Season 2, Episode 19)

Ok, so sometimes, even the best of us make rash decisions.  Bad decisions.  Decisions we pretty much know we're going to regret the moment, the minute especially...the morning after.  I mean, maybe not "regret" regret because at least, 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's karma.  And any way you slice it, karma sucks.

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 balance 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.

Yesterday (Season 2, Episode 18)

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 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.

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. 

This is How We Do It (Season 7, Episode 17)

Renegades. Rule-breakers. Gangsters with scalpels.  This is the way we like to think of ourselves.  It makes us feel bad-ass.  Sexy.

Problem is, it's not  exactly true.  At heart, we're rule followers.  Sheep.  We don't break protocol - we follow it to a "T".  Because if we don't follow protocol, our patients die, and then we're no longer bad-ass, we're just bad. 

It's every doctor's dilemma.  Do you play it safe and follow protocol? Or take a risk and invent a new one? There can be reward in risk.  There can also be fallout.

Still, you need to buck the system every once in a while.  Big.  And when you get the results you want, there's no better feeling in the world.  But when you don't....

As We Know It (Season 2, Episode 17)

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, the smell of death.  Some think there's just 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?

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

It's the End of the World (Season 2, Episode 16)

It's a look patients get in their eyes.  There's a scent.  The smell of death.  Some kind of sixth sense.  When the great beyond is headed for you, you feel it coming.

What's the one thing you've always dreamed of doing before you die?

Not Responsible (Season 7, Episode 16)

Everyone figures doctors are the most responsible people they know.  They hold lives in their hands.  They're not flakes.  They don't lose track of important details or make stunningly bad judgment calls, 'cause that would be bad, right?

We are responsible with our patients.  Problem is, we blow it all out at work.  In our own lives, we can't think it through, we don't make a sound choice.  We did that all day at the hospital.  When it comes to ourselves, we've got nothing left.  And is it worth it? Being responsible?  'Cause if you take your vitamins, and pay your taxes, and never cut the line, the universe still gives you people to love, and then lets them slip through your fingers like water.  And then what have you got?  Vitamins, and nothing.

Golden Hour (Season 7, Episode 15)

How much can you actually accomplish in an hour?  Run an errand, maybe? Sit in traffic.  Get an oil change.  When you think about it, an hour isn't very long.  60 minutes.  3600 seconds.  That's it. 

In medicine, though, an hour is often everything.  We call it the golden hour - that magical window of time that can determine whether a patient lives, or dies. 

An hour - one hour - can change everything.  Forever.  An hour can save your life.  An hour can change your mind.  Sometimes an hour is just a gift we give ourselves.  For some, an hour can mean almost nothing.  For others, an hour makes all the difference in the world.  But in the end, it's still just an hour.  One of many, many more to come.  60 minutes.  3600 seconds.  That's it. And it starts all over again. And who knows what the next hour might hold?

P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) (Season 7, Episode 14)

One of the hardest lessons as a doctor is learning to prioritize.  We're trained to do all we can to save life and limb, but, if cutting off a limb means saving a life, we learn to do it.  Without hesitation.  It's not an easy lesson to learn, and it always comes down to one question, "What are the stakes?"  What do we stand to gain or lose?  At the end of the day, we're just gamblers, trying not to bet the farm.

Surgery is a high stakes game.  But, no matter how high the stakes, sooner or later you're just going to have to go with your gut.  And maybe, just maybe, that'll take you right where you were meant to be in the first place.

Don't Deceive Me (Please Don't Go) (Season 7, Episode 13)

Doctors practice deception all the time.  We give vague answers to hard questions.  We don't talk about post-op pain.  We say "you'll experience some discomfort."  If you didn't die, we tell you the surgery went well.  But the placebo has to be the doctor's greatest deception.  Half of our patients we tell the truth.  The other half - we pray the placebo effect's real, and we tell ourselves that they'll feel better anyhow, believing help's on the way, when in fact, we're leaving them to die.

Doctors practice deception every day.  On our patients.  On their families.  But the worst deception we practice is on ourselves.  Which is why sometimes it takes us a while to realize that the truth has been in front of us the whole time.

Start Me Up (Season 7, Episode 12)

People are really romantic about the beginnings of things.  Fresh start.  Clean slate.  A world of possibility.  But, no matter what new adventure you're embarking on, you're still you.  You bring you into every new beginning in your life, so how different can it possibly be? 

It's all anybody wants, right?  Clean slate.  A new beginning.  Like that's going to be any easier.  Ask the guy pushing the boulder up the hill.  Nothing's easy about starting over. 

Disarm (Season 7, Episode 11)

To a degree, medicine is a science, but I would argue that it's also an art.  The doctor's who see medicine as science only?  You don't want them by your side when your bleeding won't stop, or when your child is screaming in pain.  The clinicians go by the book.  The artists follow their guts.  The artists feel your pain, and they go to extremes to make it stop.  Extreme measures.  That's where science ends, and art begins. 

Surgery is extreme.  We cut into your body, take out pieces, put what's left, back together. 

Good thing life doesn't come with a scalpel, because if it did, when things started to hurt, we would just cut and cut and cut.  The thing is, what we take away with a scalpel, we can't ever get back.  So... like I said... good thing.