Shonda Rhimes Quotes

Glass ceilings have been broken, but more have to be broken.

The door might not be opened to a woman again for a long, long time, and I had a kind of duty to other women to walk in and sit down on the chair that was offered, and so establish the right of others long hence and far distant in geography to sit in the high seats.

I had very supportive parents that made the way for me, even at a time when there were very few women - no women, really; maybe two or three women - and very few, fewer than that, African-American women heading in this direction, so there were very few people to look up to. You just had to have faith.

Women have begun to see that if I go through that doorway, I take everybody through it.

I asked, "What do you think the most important advancement was for women in recent years?" And the majority, the item that polled the most, was Hillary Clinton's run for President. Can you believe that? Women saw that as a breakthrough in something very, very important. She didn't win. And I think another thing that her race did was it showed sexism in our society.

The reason I wrote Lean In is I think people weren't actually noticing that we had stopped making progress. I gave a TED talk and said: "It turns out men still run the world." And the audience gasped as if that was news.

Being the first woman speaker and breaking the marble ceiling is pretty important. Now it's time to move on.

Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail their failure must be but a challenge to others.

I never thought I was breaking a glass ceiling. I just had to do what I had to do, and it never occurred to me not to.

If you're a woman, just make a freaking good movie. I don't believe in the women who say, 'It's too hard, I'm getting shot down.'

Yes, it's a man's world, but that's all right because they're making a total mess of it. We're chipping away at their control, taking the parts we want. Some women think it's a difficult task, but it's not.

Our daughters were coming of age during a rising consciousness about gender equality. Throughout their school years - from kindergarten through graduate school, 1972 to 1992 - women were starting to take their places in areas traditionally reserved mostly for men.

When women say that going on publications directed at men is somehow demeaning, I don't think that's true. I think that's one really effective way to change the societal standard women are held to.

I certainly came up in an era where women were really making strides and making a point to beat down doors and find their place and crash through the glass ceiling.

If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.

I like to play women who blaze trails.

The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.

Leadership is about encouraging women to break their silence and tell their stories to the world.

My mother wanted to be a teacher when she was young, and my father didn't approve of it, so she fought very hard to become one. And she did it. So when I said I wanted to become an actress, my mother was very supportive. She always said to me, 'There's no such thing as 'can't.'

We still have not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling.

There are real consequences when women speak out. It's really dangerous, and it takes real courage. We are still speaking out against a white male majority. Forget the glass ceiling. We haven't even broken the glass floor!

If I take a bump or bruise along the way, that's nothing compared to the sacrifices that the women whose shoulders I stand upon made along the way.

It is so inspirational, to see that in the world of Westeros, men are answering to women, and they are a force to be reckoned with. It's empowering, and it's inspirational as well, because you're just like, 'This is great!'

During the era when women were burning their bras - which, by the way, they never actually did - but when women were first becoming liberated, I was 23. And I met a woman who asked, 'Don't you feel bad because you're sort of acting like the stupid airhead blonde?' And I totally surprised myself. I said, 'Liberation can also come from the inside.'

We have to overcome the practice of male domination - even though it's changing, and changing in Liberia quite drastically.