Margaret Mitchell

There ain't nothing from the outside can lick any of us.

Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them!

Death and taxes and childbirth. There's never any convenient time for any of them.

I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. 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.

In a weak moment, I have written a book.

Talking to Rhett was comparable only to one thing, the feeling of ease and comfort afforded by a pair of old slippers after dancing in a pair too tight.

The way to get a man interested and to hold his interest was to talk about himself, and then gradually lead the conversation around yourself__nd keep it there.

You should be kissed and often, by someone who knows how.

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.

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.

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.

I__e felt that I was trying to row a heavily loaded boat in a storm. I__e had so much trouble just trying to keep afloat that I couldn__ be bothered about things that didn__ matter, things I could part with easily and not miss, like good manners and--well, things like that. I__e been too afraid my boat would be swamped and so I__e dumped overboard the things that seemed least important.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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