Meredith: (opening voiceover) As surgeons we are trained to fix what’s broken. The breaking point is our starting line at work. But in our lives the breaking point is a sign of weakness and we’ll do everything we can to avoid it.

Izzie: Eat the muffin, Mer. Taste the muffin. Remember. The muffin.

Meredith: My patient's dying. I hate when I like them and they're dying.

Cristina: There's no way that guy has been living at an 8. He's a wimp. His 8? My 3. I can take pain.
Meredith: You can't talk to my boyfriend for 10 minutes.
Cristina: Well there's pain and then there's torture.

Dr. Wyatt: Yes. Horrible things do happen. Happiness in the face of all of that? That's not the goal. Feeling the horrible and knowing that you’re not gonna die from those feelings. That’s the point.

Meredith: (closing voiceover) Bones break. Organs burst. Flesh tears. We can sew the flesh, repair the damage, ease the pain. But when life breaks down -- when we break down -- there’s no science. No hard and fast rules. We just have to feel our way through. And to a surgeon there’s nothing worse, and there’s nothing better.

Episode Title: Here Comes the Flood

"Here Comes the Flood" is the title of a song by Peter Gabriel.