Margaret Mitchell Quotes

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

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

She was darkness and he was darkness and there had never been anything before this time, only darkness and his lips upon her. She tried to speak and his mouth was over hers again. Suddenly she had a wild thrill such as she had never known; joy, fear, madness, excitement, surrender to arms that were too strong, lips too bruising, fate that moved too fast.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

A startling thought this, that a woman could handle businessmatters as well as or better than a man, a revolutionary thought toScarlett who had been reared in the tradition that men wereomniscient and women none too bright. Of course, she haddiscovered that this was not altogether true but the pleasantfiction still stuck in her mind. Never before had she put thisremarkable idea into words. She sat quite still, with the heavybook across her lap, her mouth a little open with surprise,thinking that during the lean months at Tara she had done a man'swork and done it well. She had been brought up to believe that awoman alone could accomplish nothing, yet she had managed theplantation without men to help her until Will came. Why, why, hermind stuttered, I believe women could manage everything in theworld without men's help--except having babies, and God knows, nowoman in her right mind would have babies if she could help it.

~ Margaret Mitchell

That is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned!

~ Margaret Mitchell

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

~ Margaret Mitchell

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

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

[T]he merciful adjustment which nature makes when what cannot be cured must be endured.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

This is what happens when you look back to happiness, this pain, this heart-break, this discontent

~ Margaret Mitchell

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

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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

~ Margaret Mitchell

All she wanted was a breathing space in which to hurt.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

But there was a difference in their hardness and hers and just what the difference was, she could not, for the moment, tell. Perhaps it was that there was nothing she would not do, and there were so many things these people would rather die than do. Perhaps it was that they were without hope but still smiling at life, bowing gracefully and passing it by. And this Scarlett could not do. She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile. Of the sweetness and courage and unyielding pride of her friends, Scarlett saw nothing. She saw only a silly stiff-neckedness which observed facts but smiled and refused to look them in the face.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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

~ Margaret Mitchell

You are a child if you thought I didn’t know, for all your smothering yourself under that hot lap robe. Of course, I knew. Why else do you think I’ve been—”He stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them. He picked up the reins and clucked to the horse.

~ Margaret Mitchell

You should be kissed and by someone who knows how.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin - that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

If Gone With the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't.

~ Margaret Mitchell

If I said I was madly in love with you you'd know I was lying.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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

~ Margaret Mitchell

What Melanie did was no more than all Southern girls were taught to do: to make those about them feel at ease and pleased with themselves. It was this happy feminine conspiracy which made Southern society so pleasant. Women knew that a land in which men were contented, uncontradicted, and safe in possession of unpunctured vanity was likely to be a very pleasant place for women to live. So from the cradle to the grave, women strove to make men pleased with themselves, and the satisfied men repaid lavishly with gallantry and adoration. In fact, men willingly gave the ladies everything in the world, except credit for having intelligence.Scarlett exercised the same charms as Melanie but with a studied artistry and consummate skill. The difference between the two girls lay in the fact that Melanie spoke kind and flattering words from a desire to make people happy, if only temporarily, and Scarlett never did it except to further her own aims.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

Fo' Gawd, Miss Scarlett! We's got ter have a doctah. Ah- Ah- Miss Scarlett, Ah doan know nuthin' 'bout bringin' babies. -Prissy

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

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.

~ Margaret Mitchell

I want to make you faint. I will make you faint. You've had this coming to you for years. None of the fools you've known have kissed you like this - have they? Your precious Charles or Frank or your stupid Ashley... I said your stupid Ashley. Gentlemen all - what do they know about women? What do they know about you? I know you.

~ Margaret Mitchell