Quotes from Margaret Mitchell

There was no one to tell Scarlett that her own personality, frighteningly vital though it was, was more attractive than any masquerade she might adopt. Had she been told, she would have been pleased but unbelieving. And the civilization of which she was a part would have been unbelieving too, for at no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on feminine naturalness.

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. And it's very bad for a woman not to be afraid of something ... always have something to fear - even as you save something to love ... and don't think you can lay down the load, ever. Because you can't.

A pain slashed through her heart as savagely as a wild animal's fangs.

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

He looked on people, and he neither liked nor disliked them. He looked on life and was neither heartened nor saddened.

They are kind of queer about music and books and scenery. Mother says it's because their grandfather came from Virginia. She says Virginians set quite a store by such things.

Oh, why was he so handsomely blond, so courteously aloof, so maddeningly boring with his talk about Europe and books and music and poetry and things that interested her not at all - and yet so desirable?

Madam, you flatter yourself. I do not want to marry you or anyone else. I am not a marrying man. - Rhett Butler

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.

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.

I feel sorry for her, but I don't like people I've got to feel sorry for.

She could never respect a man who let her run over him...

all the bullying instincts in her nature rose to the surface. It was not that she was basically unkind. It was because she was so frightened and unsure of herself she was harsh lest others learn her inadequacies: and refuse her authority.

The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely on her shoulders now. She was twenty-five and looked it, and so there as no longer any need to try to be attractive.

But the small cloud which appeared in the northwest four months ago had blown up into a mighty storm and then into a screaming tornado,sweeping away her world, whirling her out of her sheltered life,and dropping her down in the midst of this still,haunted desolation.

A frost lay over all her emotions and she thought that she would never feel anything warmly again.

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.

Why will people persist in reading strange meanings into the simplest of story? Is it not enough that a writer can entertain for a few hours with narrative without being suspected of 'significances' or symbolism or 'social trends'?

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.

And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not... I kept on loving the pretty clothes - and not him at all.

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.

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

For I am fighting for the old days, the old ways which I love so much, but which, I fear, are now gone forever, no matter how the die may fall. For, win or lose, we lose just the same. - Ashley Wilkes, Gone with the Wind

In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven't are winnowed out. At least, it has been interesting, if not comfortable, to witness a Gotterdammerung.' 'A what?' 'A dusk of the gods. Unfortunately, we Southerners did think we were gods.