"All she wanted was a breathing space in which to hurt."

"So you'll have to wait for approval from your grandchildren. 'I wonder what our grandchildren will be like! 'Are you suggesting by that 'our' that you and I will have mutual grandchildren? Fie, Mrs. Kennedy!"

"Death and taxes and childbirth. There's never any convenient time for any of them."

"Yes, as Rhett had prophesied, marriage could be a lot of fun. Not only was it fun but she was learning many things. That was odd in itself, because Scarlett had thought life could teach her no more. Now she felt like a child, every day on the brink of a new discovery."

"Don't you suppose men get surprised after they're married to findthat their wives do have sense?''Well, it's too late den. Dey's already mahied."

"Child, it's a very bad thing for a woman to face the worst that can happen to her, because after she's faced the worst she can't ever really fear anything again. ...Scarlett, always save something to fear- even as you save something to love..."

"There ain't nothing from the outside that can lick any of us."

"Ashley watched her go and saw her square her small shoulders as she went. And that gesture went to his heart, more than any words she had spoken."

"Scarlett's mind went back through the years to the still hot noon at Tara when grey smoke curled above a blue-clad body and Melanie stood at the top of the stairs with Charles' sabre in her hand. Scarlett remembered that she had thought at the time: 'How silly! Melly couldn't even heft that sword!' But now she knew that had the necessity arisen, Melanie would have charged down those stairs and killed the Yankee - or been killed herself."

"You're Ma's own blood son, but did she take on that time Tony Fontaine shot you in the leg? No, she just sent for old Doc Fontaine to dress it and asked the doctor what ailed Tony's aim. Said she guessed the licker was spoiling his marksmanship."

"I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face."

"You are a child if you thought I didn't know, for all your smothering yourself under that hot lap robe. Of course, I knew. Why else do you think I've been-He stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them. He picked up the reins and clucked to the horse."

"He knew that she took life as it came, opposed her tough-fibered mind to whatever obstacles there might be, fought on with a determination that would not recognize defeat, and kept on fighting even when she saw defeat was inevitable."

"She was darkness and he was darkness and there had never been anything before this time, only darkness and his lips upon her. She tried to speak and his mouth was over hers again. Suddenly she had a wild thrill such as she had never known; joy, fear, madness, excitement, surrender to arms that were too strong, lips too bruising, fate that moved too fast."

"Did you ever hear the Oriental proverb, 'The dogs bark but the caravan passes on'? Let them bark, Scarlett. I fear nothing will stop your caravan."

"I wish to Heaven I was married,' she said resentfully as she attacked the yams with loathing. 'I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I'm tired of saying, 'How wonderful you are!' to fool men who haven't got one-half the sense I've got, and I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing it... I can't eat another bite."

"I do not write with ease, nor am I ever pleased with anything I write. And so I rewrite."

"Perhaps - I want the old days back again and they'll never come back, and I am haunted by the memory of them and of the world falling about my ears."

"This is what happens when you look back to happiness, this pain, this heart-break, this discontent."

"Suddenly she felt strong and happy. She was not afraid of the darkness or the fog and she knew with a singing in her heart that she would never fear them again. No matter what mists might curl around her in the future, she knew her refuge. She started briskly up the street toward home and the blocks seemed very long. Far, far too long. She caught up her skirts to her knees and began to run lightly. But this time she was not running from fear. She was running because Rhett's arms were at the end of the street."

"If I said I was madly in love with you you'd know I was lying."

"Talking to Rhett was comparable only to one thing, the feeling of ease and comfort afforded by a pair of old slippers after dancing in a pair too tight."

"Like most girls, her imagination carried her just as far as the altar and no further."

"Say you'll marry me when I come back or, before God, I won't go. I'll stay around here and play a guitar under your window every night and sing at the top of my voice and compromise you, so you'll have to marry me to save your reputation."

"Her burdens were her own and burdens were for shoulders strong enough to bear them."

"The merciful adjustment which nature makes when what cannot be cured must be endured."

"These three ladies disliked and distrusted one another as heartily as the First Triumvirate of Rome, and their close alliance was probably for the same reason."

"Yes, I want money more than anything else in the world.'Then you've made the only choice. But there's a penalty attached, as there is to most things you want. It's loneliness."

"Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect."

"Why, why, her mind stuttered, I believe women could manage everything in the world without men's help--except having babies, and God knows, no woman in her right mind would have babies if she could help it."

"Why is it a girl has to be so silly to catch a husband?'Ah specs it's kase gempmums doan know whut dey wants. Dey jes' knows whut dey thinks dey wants. An' givin' dem whut dey thinksdey wants saves a pile of mizry an' bein' a ole maid. An' dey thinks dey wants mousy lil gals wid bird's tastes an' no sense atall. It doan make a gempmum feel lak mahyin' a lady ef he suspicions she got mo' sense dan he has."

"Southerners can never resist a losing cause."

"Until you've lost your reputation you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is."

"Ellen's life was not easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman's lot. It was a man's world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving."

"That is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned!"

"It was better to know the worst than to wonder."

"Hardships make or break people."

"I stood there in the doorway before you saw me and I watched you,' he said.'And I watched the other girls. And they all looked as though their faces came out of one mold. Yours didn't."

"It was not often that she was alone like this and she did not like it. When she was alone she had to think and, these days, thoughts were not so pleasant."

"In fact, the mothers of all her girl friends impressed on their daughters the necessity of being helpless, clinging, doe-eyed creatures. Really, it took alot of sense to cultivate and hold such a pose."

"She thinks I'm a hussy,' thought Scarlett. 'And perhaps she's right at that!"

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin - that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns."

"The south produced statesmen and soldiers, planters and doctors and lawyers and poets, but certainly no engineers and mechanics. Let Yankees adopt such low callings."

"After all, tomorrow is another day."

"If Gone With the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't."

"In a weak moment, I have written a book."

"What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one."

"I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken - and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived."

"Melly is the only woman friend I ever had, she thought forlornly, 'the only woman except Mother who really loved me. She's like Mother, too. Everyone who knew her has clung to her skirts."

"All wars are sacred, he said. 'To those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn't make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of bugles and drums and the fine words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the rallying cry is 'save the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!' Sometimes it's 'down with Popery!' and sometimes 'Liberty!' and sometimes 'Cotton, Slavery and States' Rights!"