Gone with the Wind | Quotes

Gerald makes this comment early in the novel, when Scarlett is too young and foolish to understand or care about it. Only later, when she becomes responsible for Tara, do his words resonate with her. Then she becomes determined to do whatever it takes to protect the plantation.

Mitchell repeatedly asserts women are capable of more than society permits in Scarlett's time. She and Melanie are both intelligent in different ways, but both defer to men on certain issues considered men's territory.

Rhett, like Scarlett, is practical and determined to make money. He professes to have no qualms about making a fortune from the South's postwar collapse, though eventually he demonstrates he has more of a conscience than Scarlett does.

Scarlett wills herself to put thoughts out of her mind when she's not ready to face them; it's her coping mechanism. In part this reflects her selfish, childlike nature, but it also reflects her tremendous instinct for self-preservation, which helps her survive the Civil War and its aftermath.

Scarlett makes this promise to herself shortly after she returns to Tara at the end of the Civil War. These words drive much of her behavior in the rest of the novel. Her fear of being hungry again, and of losing Tara, leads her to steal her sister's fiancé, to use unethical business practices, and do anything else it takes to survive and thrive.

Grandma Fontaine warns Scarlett about becoming hardened by suffering and loss. Scarlett doesn't listen to her. She becomes hardened and is cruel to those around her for several years—until it is too late to repair many of her relationships.

After the war, Ashley must face his own failings. He talks about them frankly with Scarlett and tries to convince her his actions during the war were neither heroic nor admirable.

When speaking at Gerald O'Hara's funeral, Will says Gerald's "mainspring was busted" when his wife, Ellen, died. The mainspring is the central mechanism in a watch; a watch cannot run without its mainspring. This metaphor fits not only Gerald but also other characters who suffer significant losses in the novel.

Mammy's succinct description captures part of what is wrong with Scarlett and Rhett: they dress the part of high-class people, but they do not behave in a high-class way and their true natures will always appear.

Scarlett finds Rhett a maddening, intriguing enigma; she is convinced he is impossible to hint. In fact, as hinted here, he wants her love very badly, but doesn't have it. He may think he never wants anything, but he is fooling himself—and Scarlett too, for the moment.

Scarlett repeatedly assumes burdens that would destroy other people. Here she is reminding herself she is stronger than Ashley and will need to help him survive Melanie's death, even as she is grieving for Melanie herself.

As both her father and Rhett told her years earlier, Scarlett never saw Ashley for who he really was. Now she finally does. All this time she thought she loved him, but when she removes her blinders, she doesn't even particularly like him.

Scarlett understands very little about anyone because she is so self-absorbed. She is particularly frustrated by her inability to understand Ashley or Rhett. But in the novel's final moments she finally recognizes how little she is like Ashley and how much she is like Rhett. Had she seen that earlier, she and Rhett might have been able to save their marriage.

Rhett's famous final response to Scarlett perfectly captures his feelings toward her. He is utterly depleted; he no longer cares what she does or where she goes, and his unsparing language makes that clear. In the novel's era most men would never say "damn" in front of a woman without apologizing, but Rhett and Scarlett never minced words, and Rhett isn't about to start now. The openness of his tone makes the quotation famous and often cited.

Frequently a novel's main character transforms during the story—not Scarlett. Mitchell makes it clear she hasn't changed at all. She only pays attention to her own desires and never gives up on getting what she wants.