Great Throughts Treasury

"God help the man who ever really loves you."

"Gone With The Wind"

"Hardships make or break people."

"Great balls of fire. Don't bother me anymore, and don't call me sugar."

"He made her play and she had almost forgotten how. Life had been so serious and so bitter. He knew how to play and swept her along with him."

"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."

"He was so very large and male, and excessively male creatures always discomposed her."

"He looked on people, and he neither liked nor disliked them. He looked on life and was neither heartened nor saddened."

"Her burdens were her own and burdens were for shoulders strong enough to bear them."

"Her heart swelled up with misery, until it felt too large for her bosom. It beat with odd little jerks; her hands were cold, and a feeling of disaster oppressed her. There were pain and bewilderment in her face, the bewilderment of a pampered child who has always had her own way for the asking and who now, for the first time, was in contact with the unpleasantness of life."

"He would never be any different and now Scarlett realize the truth and accepted it without emotion - that until he died Gerald would always be waiting for Ellen, always listening for her. Her was in some dim borderline country where time was standing still and Ellen was always in the next room. The mainspring of his existence was taken away when she died and with it has gone his bounding assurance, his impudence and his restless vitality. Ellen was the audience before which the blustering drama of Gerald O'Hara had been played Now the curtain had been rung down forever, the footlights dimmed and the audience suddenly vanished, while the stunned old actor remained on his empty stage, waiting for his cues."

"Her lips on his could tell him better than all her stumbling words."

"Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother's gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own."

"How closely women clutch the very chains that bind them!"

"His voice stopped and they looked for a long quiet moment into each other's eyes and between them lay the sunny lost youth that they had so unthinkingly shared."

"Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: 'As God is my witness, and God is my witness, the Yankees aren't going to lick me. I'm going to live through this, and when it's over, I'm never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill - as God is my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again."

"Hush, he said. I am asking you to marry me. Would you be convinced if I knelt down?"

"How wonderful to know someone who was bad and dishonorable and a cheat and a liar, when all the world was filled with people who would not lie to save their souls and who would rather starve than do a dishonorable deed!"

"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 someone 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."

"I can't go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands."

"I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."

"I do not write with ease, nor am I ever pleased with anything I write. And so I rewrite."

"I can't let him go. I can't. There must be some way to bring him back. Oh, I can't think about this now! I'll go crazy if I do! I'll think about it tomorrow. But I must think about it. I must think about it. What is there to do? What is there that matters? Tara! Home. I'll go home. And I'll think of some way to get him back. After all... tomorrow is another day!"

"I can't make you understand because you don't know the meaning of fear. You have the heart of a lion and an utter lack of imagination and I envy you both of those qualities. You'll never mind facing realities and you'll never want to escape from them as I do."

"I feel sorry for her, but I don't like people I've got to feel sorry for."

"I love you... I've always loved you. I've never loved anybody else. I just married Charlie to - to try to hurt you. Oh, Ashley, I love you so much I'd walk every step of the way to Virginia just to be near you! And I'd cook for you and polish your boots and groom your horse - Ashley, say you love me! I'll live on it for the rest of my life!"

"I only know that I love you. That's your misfortune."

"I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace."

"I loved something I made up, something that's just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn't see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes?and not him at all."

"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."

"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."

"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 you?re stupid Ashley. Gentlemen all - what do they know about women? What do they know about you? I know you."

"I won?t think of it now. I?ll think of it later when I can stand it."

"I wish to Heaven I was married, she said resentfully as she attacked the yams with loathing. 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... I can't eat another bite."

"I will think about that tomorrow!"

"I'd cut up my heart for you if you wanted it...I'd do anything for you!"

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

"I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face."

"I wish I could care what you do or where you go but I can't... My dear, I don't give a damn."

"I won't need you to rescue me. I can take care of myself, thank you."

"I wonder if they know they are fighting for a cause that was lost the minute the first shot has fired."

"I won't think of it now. I can't stand it now. I'll think of it later."

"I won't think about it today, I'll think about it tomorrow. After all tomorrow is another day."

"I`ll think about that tomorrow"

"I?ve done murder and so I can surely do this."

"I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'll never understand or forgive myself. And if a bullet gets me, so help me, I'll laugh at myself for being an idiot. There's one thing I do know... and that is that I love you, Scarlett. In spite of you and me and the whole silly world going to pieces around us, I love you. Because we're alike. Bad lots, both of us. Selfish and shrewd. But able to look things in the eyes as we call them by their right names."

"If he's forgotten me, I'll make him remember me. I'll make him want me again."

"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."

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

"I'll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day."