The whole world can't lick us, but we can lick ourselves by longing too hard for things we haven't got anymore - and by remembering too much.

— Margaret Mitchell

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

— Margaret Mitchell

To Scarlett, there was something breathtaking about Ellen O'Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.

— Margaret Mitchell

Until you've lost your reputation you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.

— 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

War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her, and she was unchanged.

— 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, contradicted, and safe in possession of punctured 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

What’s broken is broken—and I’d rather remember it as it was at its better 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

Why is it a girl has to be so silly to catch a husband?”“Ah specs it’s base gempmums down know what day wants. Day yes’ knows what day thinks day wants. An’ givin’ them what day thinks wants saves a pile of miry an’ bein’ an ole maid. An’ day thinks day wants mousy little gals did bird’s tastes an’ no sense tall. It down make a gypsum feel LAK main’ a lady of the suspicions she got mo’ sense Dan he has.

— Margaret Mitchell

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.

— Margaret Mitchell