Shonda Rhimes Quotes

The first time I ever heard professional actors delivering lines that I wrote was completely surreal and was just a gigantic moment in my life. It was just a little bit mind-blowing and completely strange to have something that had been on my computer being said out loud.

There's nothing more thrilling than watching great actors say things that you wrote and bring them to life.

When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.

If I'm serious, yes, I'd like to have done what Shakespeare did... to act and write. You learn so much from acting. One of our great writers, Alan Bennett, does both supremely well. When I write a story, I tend to speak it aloud as I'm writing it.

I love novels, but I'm not a novelist. I'm just a dramatist, which means I write lines for actors. That's all I have ever wanted to do.

A storyteller is basically what actors and writers are.

As an actor, there is room for a certain amount of creativity, but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina, skill or ability to write a novel, but I'd love to write short stories and poetry, because those are my two passions.

I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I've never taken a course and I've never read a book about it!

In my screenplays - from the very beginning I've always used tape. I talk my screenplays. And then have somebody transcribe them.

A script is a unique literary form, because it's not the end product; it's a blueprint. If you're not thinking of that end product, there's going to be a disconnect.

I write plays instinctively. I don't like writing movie scripts.

As a playwright, you are a torturer of actors and of the audience as well. You inflict things on people.

I've come to find more satisfaction and enjoyment in writing screenplays over the years because that's what I do primarily now.

There's something really nice about writing something on Wednesday and watching it being performed live for a studio audience on Tuesday. You never really get that with novels.

I went to journalism school, so sometimes writing the script of 'Being Mary Jane' is me putting my journalism hat on.

'End of Watch' was 98-percent written, and I work really hard to make it look like it's the first time I'm saying it.

I like scripts. I spend a lot of time writing them.

TV writing - for me, at least - is half original voice and half an embodiment and a representation of the spirit of the actors you're writing for.

I really wanted to create some of my own characters, then it became wanting to act the parts, then it sort of grew from there because I really enjoyed doing it.

I don't find writing for the theater that different from writing a rock song.

When you write for a show that's not yours, your job is to hear the voices of the characters and write as best you can for those voices.

If I ever wrote a script myself, it would be strongly emotional material.

It's an odd mix, the life of a playwright.

I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories.

Personally, I've made myself a very small window of what I enjoy in this business, which is I love being a big part of the storytelling process.