It's a curse - this not wanting to look on naked realities. Until the war, life was never more real to me than a shadow show on a curtain. And I preferred it so. I do not like the outlines of things to be too sharp. I like them gently blurred, a little hazy.
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?
As usual in the very young, she marveled that people could be so selfishly oblivious to her pain and the world rock along just the same, in spite of her heartbreak.
The world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business.
There was a look of consternation in them, of incredulity and something more - what was it? Yes, Gerald had looked that way the day his pet hunter had broken his leg and he had had to shoot him. Why did she have to think of that now? Such a silly thought. And why did Ashley look so oddly and say nothing?
And that lack of fear has gotten me into a lot of trouble and cost me a lot of happiness. God intended women to be timid frightened creatures and there's something unnatural about a woman who isn't afraid... Scarlett, always save something to fear—even as you save something to love...
I do not like the outlines of things to be too sharp. I like them gently blurred, a little hazy.
To die for ones country, is to live forever.
She wanted to cry but the tears would not come. They seemed to flood her chest, and they were hot tears that burned under her bosom, but they would not flow.
I keep life filled and speeded up so that I can cheat myself into believing that I am happy and contented, but oh! When night comes and I go to bed and turn out the lights, I lie there in the dark, I realize the absolute futility of trying to kid myself.
Ashley to marry Melanie Hamilton! Oh, it couldn't be true!
I'd cut up my heart for you to wear if you wanted it.
Melly couldn't say boo to a goose.
Well fiddle dee dee!
Everywhere, women gathered in knots, huddled in groups on front porches, on sidewalks, even in the middle of the streets, telling each other that no news is good news, trying to comfort each other, trying to present a brave appearance.
If for no other reason she hated the Yankees because they kept her from having real coffee with sugar and thick cream in it.
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.
Don't holler—smile and bide your time.' We've survived a passel of things that way, smiling and biding our time, and we've gotten to be experts at surviving. We had to be.
If! If! If There were so many ifs in life, never any certainty of anything, never any security...
Now he saw that she understood entirely too well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.
You think that by saying, ‘I'm sorry,' all the errors and hurts of years past can be remedied, obliterated from the mind, all the poison drawn from old wounds….
Drink and dissipation had done their work on the coin-clean profile and now it was no longer the head of a young pagan prince on new-minted gold but a decadent, tired Caesar on copper debased by long usage.
For a woman, love comes after marriage.
Better to be tormented with memories of Ashley than Charleston accents.
Mr. Lincoln, the merciful and just, who cries large tears over Mrs. Bixby's five boys, hasn't any tears to shed about the thousands of Yankees dying at Andersonville," said Rhett, his mouth twisting. "He doesn't care if they all die. The order is out. No exchanges.
Give me a good horse to ride and some good licker to drink and a good girl to court and a bad girl to have fun with and anybody can have their own Europe.... What do we care about missing the tour?
I've done murder and so I can surely do this.
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.
You talk like a Baptist preacher making a recruiting speech. Suppose I don't want to redeem myself? Why should I fight to uphold the system that cast me out? I shall take pleasure in seeing it smashed.
They were the eyes of a happy woman, a woman around whom storms might blow without ever ruffling the serene core of her being.
Oh, what a mess life was! Why had she been such an idiot as to marry Charles of all people and have her life end at sixteen?
That's what's wrong with you. All your beaux have respected you too much, though God knows why, or they have been too afraid of you to really do right by you. The result is that you are unendurably uppity. You should be kissed and by someone who knows how.
He thought as he stared at Will in the shadowy hall that he had never known such gallantry as the gallantry of Scarlett O'Hara going forth to conquer the world in her mother's velvet curtains and the tail feathers of a rooster.
Scarlett, always save something to fear—even as you save something to love.
She [Melanie] is the only dream I ever had that lived and breathed and did not die in the face of reality.
A frost lay over all her emotions and she thought that she would never feel anything warmly again.
No, my dear, I'm not in love with you, no more than you are with me, and if I were, you would be the last person I'd ever tell. God help the man who ever really loves you. You'd break his heart, my darling, cruel, destructive little cat who is so careless and confident she doesn't even trouble to sheathe her claws.
It was better to know the worst than to wonder.
Then he had thought it all beyond her mental grasp and it had been pleasant to explain things to her. Now he saw that she understood entirely too well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.
Times never change when there's a need for honest work to be done.
Then you've made the only choice. But there's a penalty attached, as there is to most things you want. It's loneliness.
The Cause they had thought could never fall had fallen forever.
Beloved, she whispered, I am coming home to you.
She had the temper of a Tartar and the rages of a wild cat and, at such times, she did not seem to care what she said or how much it hurt.
Why be an ostrich?
I feel sorry for her, but I don't like people I've got to feel sorry for.
She saw in his eyes defeat of her wild dreams, her mad desires.
Like most girls, her imagination carried her just as far as the altar and no further.
Babies, babies, babies. Why did God make so many babies? But no, God didn't make them. Stupid people made them.
