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.
Most of the misery of the world has been caused by wars. And when the wars were over, no one ever knew what they were all about.
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.
She raised her chin and her pale, black-fringed eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Ellen had never told her that desire and attainment were two different matters; life had not taught her that the race was not to the swift. She lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the plans that a sixteen-year-old makes when life has been so pleasant that defeat is an impossibility and a pretty dress and a clear complexion are weapons to vanquish fate.
I love you, Scarlett, because we are so much alike, renegades, both of us, dear, and selfish rascals. Neither of us cares a rap if the whole world goes to pot, so long as we are safe and comfortable.
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.
They were the eyes of a happy woman, a woman around whom storms might blow without ever ruffling the serene core of her being.
As God is my witness, as God is my witness they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again. – Scarlett.
With the spirit of her people those who would not know defeat, even when it stared them in the face, she raised her chin. She could get Rhett back. She knew she could. There had never been a man she couldn’t get, once she set her mind upon him. I’ll think of it all tomorrow at Tara. I can strand it then. Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.
You’re a heartless creature but that’s part of your charm. Though you’ve got more charm than the law allows.
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.
He was so tender, so infinitely soothing, she longed to stay in his arms forever. With such strong arms about her, surely nothing could harm her.
Sometimes she thought that all the people she had ever known were strangers except Rhett. “Can’t.
Ashley was imprisoned forever by words which were stronger than any jail.
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.
She was less frightened also because life had taken on the quality of a dream, a dream too terrible to be real. It wasn’t possible that she, Scarlett O’Hara, should be in such a predicament, with the danger of death about her every hour, every minute. It wasn’t possible that the quiet tenor of life could have changed so completely in so short a time.
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.
It’s only hypocrites like you, my dear lady, just as black at heart but trying to hide it, who become enraged when called by their right names.
Money can’t buy everything.” “Someone must have told you that. You’d never think of such a platitude all by yourself. What can’t it buy?” “Oh, well, I don’t know – not happiness or love, anyway.” “Generally it can. And when it can’t, it can buy some of the most remarkable substitutes.
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.