Best Margaret Mitchell Quotes & Sayings

I love you, your courage and your stubbornness and your fire and your utter ruthlessness. How much do I love you? So much that a moment ago I would have outraged the hospitality of the house which has sheltered me and my family, forgotten the best wife any man ever had - enough to take you here in the mud like a - "
She struggled with a chaos of thoughts and there was a cold pain in her heart as if an icicle had pierced it. She said haltingly: "If you felt like that - and didn't take me - then you don't love me."
"I can never make you understand. — Margaret Mitchell

for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject. But she smiled when she spoke, consciously deepening her dimple and fluttering her bristly black lashes as swiftly as butterflies' wings. The boys were enchanted, as she had intended them to be, and they hastened to apologize for boring her. They thought none the less of her for her lack of interest. Indeed, they thought more. War was men's business, not ladies', and they took her attitude as evidence of her femininity. Having — Margaret Mitchell

It doesn't matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful. For a woman, love comes after marriage."
"Oh, Pa, that's such an Old Country notion!"
"And a good notion it is! All this American business of running around marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel? — Margaret Mitchell

Hardships make or break people. — Margaret Mitchell

But Rhett, you mustn't bring me anything else so expensive. It's awfully kind of you, but I really couldn't accept anything else."
"Indeed? Well, I shall bring you presents so long as it pleases me and so long as I see things that will enhance your charms. I shall bring you dark-green watered silk for a frock to match the bonnet. And I warn you that I am not kind. I am tempting you with bonnets and bangles and leading you into a pit. Always remember I never do anything without reason and I never give anything without expecting something in return. I always get paid. — Margaret Mitchell

The next year, their first child was born and they named her Katie Scarlett, — Margaret Mitchell

Dear Scarlett! You aren't helpless. Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless. God help the Yankees if they should get you. -Rhett Butler — Margaret Mitchell

Because she had always been happy, she wanted everyone about her to be happy or, at least, pleased with themselves. To this end, she always saw the best in everyone and remarked kindly upon it. There was no servant so stupid that she did not find some redeeming trait of loyalty and kind-heartedness, no girl so ugly and disagreeable that she could not discover grace of form or nobility of character in her, and no man so worthless or so boring that she did not view him in the light of his possibilities rather than his actualities. Because of these qualities that came sincerely and spontaneously from a generous heart, everyone flocked about her, for who can resist the charm of one who discovers in others admirable qualities undreamed of even by himself? — 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

...war was not glory but dirt and misery. — Margaret Mitchell

She was as forthright and simple as the winds that blew over Tara and the yellow river that wound around it. — Margaret Mitchell

Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything. — Margaret Mitchell

Brilliance is one part talent, two parts wisdom and three parts passion. — Margaret Mitchell

Why be an ostrich? — 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

Why, my goodness, honey. After looking at all those pictures of seraphic and perspirationless babes for so long in the privacy of a foxhole, what is a poor doughfoot going to do when he comes home and discovers that American women are, after all, biological and given, under stress, to shiny noses? — Margaret Mitchell

They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages. But she loved him so much, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews. — Margaret Mitchell

The happiest days are when babies come. — Margaret Mitchell

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 some one 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. — Margaret Mitchell

What did they know about you? I know you. — Margaret Mitchell

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. — Margaret Mitchell

It was his goatee that annoyed her the most. Men should either be clean shaven, mustached or wear full beards. — Margaret Mitchell

Don't be a goose! — Margaret Mitchell

Men are so conceited they'll believe anything that flatters them — Margaret Mitchell

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. — Margaret Mitchell

Men should either be clean shaven, mustached or wear full beards. "That little wisp looks like it was just the best he could do," she thought, — Margaret Mitchell

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

Had awakened no idea of what passion might be or tenderness or true intimacy of body or spirit. — Margaret Mitchell

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

Yes, life was very sweet and cosy with Scarlett - as long as she had her own way — Margaret Mitchell

She could never respect a man who let her run over him... — Margaret Mitchell

Southerners can never resist a losing cause. — Margaret Mitchell

Times never change when there's a need for honest work to be done. — Margaret Mitchell

and the most insane gossip tortured the town — Margaret Mitchell

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 - and keep it there. — Margaret Mitchell

I don't want any money for it," he said. "It's a gift." Scarlett's mouth dropped open. The line was so closely, so carefully drawn where gifts from men were concerned. "Candy and flowers, dear," Ellen had said time and again, "and perhaps a book of poetry or an album or a small bottle of Florida water are the only things a lady may accept from a gentleman. Never, never any expensive gift, even from your fiance. And never any gift of jewelry or wearing apparel, not even gloves or handkerchiefs. Should you accept such gifts, men would know you were no lady and would try to take liberties. — Margaret Mitchell

You have all the passion for life I lack. — Margaret Mitchell

Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, her father's plantation, — Margaret Mitchell

In a weak moment, I have written a book. — Margaret Mitchell

Scarlet 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

There was no going back and she was going forward. — Margaret Mitchell

He was so very large and male, and excessively male creatures always discomposed her. — Margaret Mitchell

You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett. You take their love and hold it over their heads like a whip. — Margaret Mitchell