"Did it ever occur to you that I loved you as much as a man can love a woman? Loved you for years before I finally got you? During the war I'd go away and try to forget you, but I couldn't and I always had to come back. After the war I risked arrest, just to come back and find you. I cared so much I believe I would have killed Frank Kennedy if he hadn't died when he did. I loved you but I couldn't let you know it. You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip."

"War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged."

"The world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business."

"But, Scarlett, did it ever occur to you that even the most deathless love could wear out?"

"I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace."

"Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for 'Tis the only thing in this world that lasts, 'Tis the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for - worth dying for."

"I'll think of it tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day."

"There'll always be wars because men love wars. Women don't, but men do.."

"Oh - a diamond ring - and Rhett, do buy a great big one!"

"There's just as much money to be made in the wreck of a civilization as in the upbuilding of one."

"Suddenly she hated them all because they were different from her, because they carried their losses with an air that she could never attain, would never wish to attain. She hated them, these smiling, light-footed strangers, these proud fools who took pride in something they had lost, seeming to be proud that they had lost it."

"Vanity was stronger than love at sixteen and there was no room in her hot heart now for anything but hate."

"The liar was the hottest to defend his veracity, the coward his courage, the ill-bred his gentlemanliness, and the cad his honor."

"I'd cut up my heart for you to wear if you wanted it."

"Scarlett kicked the coverlet in impotent rage, trying to think of something bad enough to say.'God's nightgown!' she cried at last, and felt somewhat relieved."

"Men are so conceited they'll believe anything that flatters them."

"But she knew that no matter what beauty lay behind, it must remain there. No one could go forward with a load of aching memories."

"To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O'Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her."

"With enough courage, you can do without a reputation."

"Do I understand, sir, that you mean the Cause for which our heroes have died is not sacred?'If you were run over by a railroad train your death wouldn't sanctify the railroad company, would it?' asked Rhett and his voice sounded as if he were humbly seeking information."

"I've felt that I was trying to row a heavily loaded boat in a storm. I've had so much trouble just trying to keep afloat that I couldn't be bothered about things that didn't matter, things I could part with easily and not miss, like good manners and--well, things like that. I've been too afraid my boat would be swamped and so I've dumped overboard the things that seemed least important."

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

"Somewhere, on the long road that wound through those four years, the girl with her sachet & dancing slippers had slipped away & there was left a woman with sharp green eyes, who counted pennies & turned her hands to many menial tasks, a woman to whom nothing was left from the wreckage except the indestructible red earth on which she stood."

"You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate,' Ellen told her daughter. 'You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls."

"You can go to the Devil and not at your leisure. You can go now, for all I care.''My pet, I've been to the Devil and he's a very dull fellow. I won't go there again, not even for you."

"As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

"What's 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 live I'm too old to believe in such sentimentalities as clean slates and starting all over."

"Pride & honor & truth & virtue & kindliness,' he enumerated silkily. 'You are right, Scarlett. They aren't important when a boat is sinking. But look around you at your friends. Either they are bringing their boats ashore safely with cargoes intact or they are content to go down with all flags flying."

"She had never understood either of the men she had loved and so she had lost them both. Now, she had a fumbling knowledge that, had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved him; had she ever understood Rhett, she would never have lost him."

"Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed."

"But how nice it would be to know that some good Yankee woman - And there must be SOME good Yankee women. I don't care what people say, they can't all be bad! How nice it would be to know that they pulled weeds off our men's graves and brought flowers to them, even if they were enemies. If Charlie were dead in the North it would comfort me to know that someone - And I don't care what you ladies think of me, her voice broke again, 'I will withdraw from both clubs and I'll - I'll pull up every weed off every Yankee's grave I can find and I'll plant flowers, too - and - I just dare anyone to stop me!"

"I was right when I said I'd never look back. It hurts too much, it drags at your heart till you can't ever do anything else except look back."

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

"The way to get a man interested and to hold his interest was to talk about himself, and then gradually lead the conversation around yourself-and keep it there."

"It seems we've been at cross purposes, doesn't it? But it's no use now. As long as there was Bonnie, there was a chance that we might be happy. I liked to think that Bonnie was you, a little girl again, before the war, and poverty had done things to you. She was so like you, and I could pet her, and spoil her, as I wanted to spoil you. But when she went, she took everything."

"So I have. Let me hold the baby, Scarlett. Oh, I know how to hold babies. I have many strange accomplishments. Well, he certainly looks like Frank. All except the whiskers, but give him time.'I hope not. It's a girl."

"Jeems was their body servant and, like the dogs, accompanied them everywhere. He had been their childhood playmate and had been given to the twins for their own on their tenth birthday."

"I bare my soul and you are suspicious! No, Scarlett, this is a bona fide honorable declaration. I admit that it's not in the best of taste, coming at this time, but I have a very good excuse for my lack of breeding. I'm going away tomorrow for a long time and I fear that if I wait till I return you'll have married some one else with a little money. So I thought, why not me and my money? Really, Scarlett, I can't go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands."

"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."

"The whole world can't lick us but we can lick ourselves by longing too hard for things we haven't got any more - and by remembering too much."