“
For a moment he hesitated as if debating whether a kind lie were kinder in the long run than the truth. Then he shrugged.
“Scarlett, I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together 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. Perhaps, if I were younger —” he sighed. “But I’m too old to believe in such sentimentalities as clean slates and starting all over. I’m too old to shoulder the burden of constant lies that go with living in polite disillusionment. I couldn’t live with you and lie to you and I certainly couldn’t lie to myself. I can’t even lie to you now. I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can’t.”
He drew a short breath and said lightly but softly:
“My dear, I don’t give a damn.”
”
—
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
“
Whereas, we, dear wife of my bosom, could have been perfectly happy if you had ever given us half a chance, for we are so much alike. We are both scoundrels, Scarlett, and nothing is beyond us when we want something. We could have been happy, for I loved you and I know you, Scarlett, down to your bones, in a way that Ashley could never know you. And he would despise you if he did know … But no, you must go mooning all your life after a man you cannot understand.
”
—
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
“
It amused and touched Scarlett to see the iron hand with which her small child ruled her father. Who would have thought that Rhett, of all people, would take fatherhood so seriously? But sometimes a dart of jealousy went through Scarlett because Bonnie, at the age of four, understood Rhett better than she had ever understood him and could manage him better than she had ever managed him.
”
—
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
“
When she looked at Tara she could understand, in part, why wars were fought. Rhett was wrong when he said men fought wars for money. No, they fought for swelling acres, softly furrowed by the plow, for pastures green with stubby cropped grass, for lazy yellow rivers and white houses that were cool amid magnolias. These were the only things worth fighting for, the red earth which was theirs and would be their sons’, the red earth which would bear cotton for their sons and their sons’ sons.
”
—
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
“
[Ashley] thought as he stared at Will in the shadowy hall that 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.
”
—
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
“
Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?
”
—
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
“
Yes, Tara was worth fighting for, and she accepted simply and without question the fight. No one was going to get Tara away from her. No one was going to set her and her people adrift on the charity of relatives. She would hold Tara, if she had to break the back of every person on it.
”
—
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
“
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.
”
—
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, chapter IV
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
“
Scarlett stared down at her in wonderment. With her own dislike of this woman so strong she could barely conceal it, how could Melly love her so? How could Melly be so stupid as not to guess the secret of her love of Ashley? She had given herself away a hundred times during these months of torment, waiting for news of him. But Melanie saw nothing, Melanie who could see nothing but good in anyone she loved …. Yes, she had promised Ashley she would look out for Melanie. Oh, Ashley! Ashley! you must be dead, dead these many months! And now your promise reaches out and clutches me!
”
— Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
“
Her mind ticked on steadily. Coldly and logically an idea grew in her brain. She thought of Rhett, a flash of white teeth against swarthy skin, sardonic black eyes caressing her. She recalled the hot night in Atlanta, close to the end of the siege, when he sat on Aunt Pitty’s porch half hidden in the summer darkness, and she felt again the heat of his hand upon her arm as he said: “I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman — and I’ve waited longer for you than I’ve ever waited for any woman.
”
—
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
(Source: fuckyeahgwtw)
