Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
51 quotes
"Her burdens were her own and burdens were for shoulders strong enough to bear them."
"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."
"Oh - a diamond ring - and Rhett, do buy a great big one!"
"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."
"A new baby! Why, Scarlett, this is a surprise!” he laughed, leaning down to push the blanket away from Ella Lorena's small ugly face." - 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."
"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."
"There’ll always be wars because men love wars. Women don’t, but men do.."
"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."
"War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged."
"I told you once before that there were two times for making big money, one in the up-building of a country and the other in its destruction. Slow money on the up-building, fast money in the crack-up. Remember my words. Perhaps they may be of use to you some day. (Rhett Butler)"
"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'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."
"She thinks I'm a hussy,' thought Scarlett. 'And perhaps she's right at that!"
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Like most girls, her imagination carried her just as far as the altar and no further."
"The liar was the hottest to defend his veracity, the coward his courage, the ill-bred his gentlemanliness, and the cad his honor"
"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."