Gone with the Wind Quotes

  • Prissy: Mammy, here's Miss Scarlett's vittles.

    Scarlett: You can take it all back to the kitchen; I won't eat a bite.

    Mammy: Yes'm you is, you's gonna eat every mouthful of this.

    Scarlett: No... I'm... NOT.

  • Scarlett: Atlanta!

    Mammy: Savannah would be better for ya. You'd just get in trouble in Atlanta.

    Scarlett: What trouble are you talking about?

    Mammy: You know what trouble I's talkin' 'bout. I's talking 'bout Mr. Ashley Wilkes. He'll be comin' to Atlanta when he gets his leave, and you sittin' there waitin' for him, just like a spider. He belongs to Miss Melanie...

    Scarlett: You go pack my things like Mother said.

  • Rhett Butler: With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.

  • Rhett Butler: How fickle is woman.

  • Rhett Butler: I'm very drunk and I intend on getting still drunker before this evening's over.

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

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

  • Scarlett: [pleads with Rhett as he is about to leave to join the Confederate Army] Oh, Rhett! Please, don't go! You can't leave me! Please! I'll never forgive you!

    Rhett Butler: 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.

    Scarlett: [struggles] Don't hold me like that!

    Rhett Butler: [holds her tighter] Scarlett! Look at me! I've loved you more than I've ever loved any woman and I've waited for you longer than I've ever waited for any woman.

    [kisses her forehead]

    Scarlett: [turns her face away] Let me alone!

    Rhett Butler: [forces her to look him in the eyes] Here's a soldier of the South who loves you, Scarlett. Wants to feel your arms around him, wants to carry the memory of your kisses into battle with him. Never mind about loving me, you're a woman sending a soldier to his death with a beautiful memory. Scarlett! Kiss me! Kiss me... once...

    [he kisses her]

  • Rhett Butler: Now that you've got your lumber mill and Frank's money, you won't come to me as you did to the jail, so I see I shall have to marry you.

    Scarlett: I never heard of such bad taste.

  • Gerald O'Hara: It will come to you, this love of the land. There's no gettin' away from it if you're Irish.

  • Rhett Butler: No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.

  • [first lines]

    Brent Tarleton: What do we care if we *were* expelled from college, Scarlett? The war is gonna start any day now, so we'd have left college anyhow.

    Stuart Tarleton: War! Isn't it exciting, Scarlett? You know those fool Yankees actually *want* a war?

    Brent Tarleton: We'll show 'em!

    Scarlett: Fiddle-dee-dee! War, war, war; this war talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream. Besides... there isn't going to be any war.

    Brent Tarleton: Not going to be any war?

    Stuart Tarleton: Why, honey, of course there's gonna be a war.

    Scarlett: If either of you boys says "war" just once again, I'll go in the house and slam the door.

    Brent Tarleton: But Scarlett, honey...

    Stuart Tarleton: Don't you *want* us to have a war?

    [she gets up and walks to the door, to their protestations]

    Scarlett: [relenting] Well... but remember, I warned you.

  • Prissy: Lawzy, we got to have a doctor. I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies.

  • Rhett Butler: A cat's a better mother than you.

  • Scarlett: I can shoot straight, if I don't have to shoot too far.

  • Mammy: Oh now, Miss Scarlett, you come on and be good and eat just a little, honey!

    Scarlett: No! I'm going to have a good time today, and do my eating at the barbeque.

    Mammy: If you don't care what folks says about this family, I does! I is told you and told you that you can always tell a lady by the way she eat in front of folks like a bird. And I ain't aiming for you to go to Mr. John Wilkes' and eat like a field hand and gobble like a hog!

    Scarlett: Fiddle-dee-dee! Ashley Wilkes told me he likes to see a girl with a healthy appetite!

    Mammy: What gentlemen says and what they thinks is two different things, and I ain't noticed Mr. Ashley asking for to marry you.

    [Scarlett turns around slowly to face Mammy then throws her small black umbrella and stuffs food into her mouth]

    Mammy: Now, don't eat too fast. Ain't no need a having for it come right back up again!

    Scarlett: [With her mouth full] Why does a girl have to be so silly to catch a husband?

  • Scarlett: Now I didn't come to talk silliness about me, Rhett. I came 'cause I was so miserable at the thought of you in trouble. Oh, I know I was mad at you the night you left me on the road to Tara, and I still haven't forgiven you!

    Rhett Butler: Oh, Scarlett! Don't say that!

    Scarlett: Well I must admit I might not be alive now, only for you. And when I think of myself with everything I could possibly hope for, and not a care in the world... And you here in this horrid jail... and not even a human jail, Rhett, a horse jail!

  • Scarlett: Great balls of fire! HICCUP! It's Rhett!

  • Rhett Butler: What a woman.

  • [Upon being widowed]

    Scarlett: My life is over. Nothing will ever happen to me anymore.

  • Rhett Butler: Did you ever think of marrying just for fun?

    Scarlett: Marriage, fun? Fiddle-dee-dee. Fun for men you mean.

  • Rhett Butler: I can't go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands.

  • Scarlett: You'd rather live with that silly little fool who can't open her mouth except to say "yes" or "no" and raise a passel of mealy-mouthed brats just like her.

    Ashley: You mustn't say unkind things about Melanie.

    Scarlett: Who are you to tell me I mustn't? You led me on... you made me believe you wanted to marry me.

    Ashley: Now Scarlett, be fair. I never at any time...

    Scarlett: You did, it's true, you did.

  • Scarlett: Rhett, Rhett... Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?

    Rhett Butler: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

  • Scarlett: What are you doing?

    Rhett Butler: I'm leaving you, my dear. All you need now is a divorce and your dreams of Ashley can come true.

    Scarlett: Oh, no! No, you're wrong, terribly wrong! I don't want a divorce. Oh Rhett, but I knew tonight, when I... when I knew I loved you, I ran home to tell you, oh darling, darling!

    Rhett Butler: Please don't go on with this, Leave us some dignity to remember out of our marriage. Spare us this last.

    Scarlett: This last? Oh Rhett, do listen to me, I must have loved you for years, only I was such a stupid fool, I didn't know it. Please believe me, you must care! Melly said you did.

    Rhett Butler: I believe you. What about Ashley Wilkes?

    Scarlett: I... I never really loved Ashley.

    Rhett Butler: You certainly gave a good imitation of it, up till this morning. No Scarlett, I tried everything. If you'd only met me half way, even when I came back from London.

    Scarlett: I was so glad to see you. I was, Rhett, but you were so nasty.

    Rhett Butler: And then when you were sick, it was all my fault... I hoped against hope that you'd call for me, but you didn't.

    Scarlett: I wanted you. I wanted you desperately but I didn't think you wanted me.

    Rhett Butler: 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.

    Scarlett: Oh, Rhett, Rhett please don't say that. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for everything.

    Rhett Butler: My darling, you're such a child. You think that by saying, "I'm sorry," all the past can be corrected. Here, take my handkerchief. Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief.

    Scarlett: Rhett! Rhett, where are you going?

    Rhett Butler: I'm going back to Charleston, back where I belong.

    Scarlett: Please, please take me with you!

    Rhett Butler: No, I'm through with everything here. I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace. Do you know what I'm talking about?

    Scarlett: No! I only know that I love you.

    Rhett Butler: That's your misfortune.

    [Rhett turns to walk down the stairs]

    Scarlett: Oh, Rhett!

    [Scarlett watches Rhett walk to the door]

    Scarlett: Rhett!

    [runs down the stairs after Rhett]

    Scarlett: Rhett, Rhett!

    [catches him as he's walking out the front door]

    Scarlett: Rhett... if you go, where shall I go, what shall I do?

    Rhett Butler: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

    [Rhett walks off into the fog]

  • Scarlett: [to Rhett] If I said I was madly in love with you you'd know I was lying.

  • Scarlett: Sir, you are no gentleman.

    Rhett Butler: And you, Miss, are no lady.

  • Scarlett: Oh Ashley, Ashley, I love you.

    Ashley: Scarlett...

    Scarlett: I love you, I do.

  • Scarlett: As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.

  • [last lines]

    Scarlett: Tara! Home. I'll go home. And I'll think of some way to get him back. After all... tomorrow is another day.

  • Rhett Butler: You're like the thief who isn't the least bit sorry he stole, but is terribly, terribly sorry he's going to jail.

  • Rhett Butler: You still think you're the cutest trick in shoe leather.

  • Scarlett: Now isn't this better than sitting at a table? A girl hasn't got but two sides to her at the table.

  • Rhett Butler: Take a good look my dear. It's an historic moment you can tell your grandchildren about - how you watched the Old South fall one night.

  • Scarlett: But you are a blockade runner.

    Rhett Butler: For profit, and profit only.

    Scarlett: Are you tryin' to tell me you don't believe in the cause?

    Rhett Butler: I believe in Rhett Butler, he's the only cause I know.

  • Rhett Butler: And those pantalettes, I don't know a woman in Paris who wears pantalettes.

    Scarlett: Oh Rhett, what do they - you shouldn't talk about such things.

    Rhett Butler: You little hypocrite. You don't mind my knowing about them, just my talking about it.

    Scarlett: But really Rhett, I can't go on accepting these gifts although you are AWFULLY kind.

    Rhett Butler: I'm not kind, I'm just tempting you.

    Scarlett: Well if you think I'll marry you just to pay for the bonnet I won't.

    Rhett Butler: Don't flatter yourself. I'm not a marrying man.

  • Scarlett: Ooh, if I just wasn't a lady, WHAT wouldn't I tell that varmint.

  • Scarlett: Cathleen, who's that?

    Cathleen Calvert: Who?

    Scarlett: That man looking at us and smiling. The nasty dog.

    Cathleen Calvert: My dear, don't you know? That's Rhett Butler. He's from Charleston. He has the most terrible reputation.

    Scarlett: He looks as if... as if he knows what I look like without my shimmy.

  • Scarlett: I only know that I love you.

    Rhett Butler: That's your misfortune.

  • Gerald O'Hara: Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara, that land doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts.

  • Scarlett: Rhett, don't. I shall faint.

    Rhett Butler: I want you to faint. This is what you were meant for. None of the fools you've ever know have kissed you like this, have they? Your Charles, or your Frank, or your stupid Ashley.

  • [Dropping Scarlett at Ashley's birthday party]

    Rhett Butler: You go into the arena alone. The lions are hungry for you.

  • Mammy: It ain't fittin'... it ain't fittin'. It jes' ain't fittin'... It ain't fittin'.

  • [to Scarlett]

    Rhett Butler: I've always thought a good lashing with a buggy whip would benefit you immensely.

  • Scarlett: [to Ashley] Dreams, dreams always dreams with you, never common sense.

  • Rene Picard: $20. $20 for Miss Maybelle Merriwether.

    Tony Fontaine: $25 for Miss Fanny Elsing.

    Dr. Meade: Only $25 to give?

    Rhett Butler: $150 in gold.

    Dr. Meade: For what lady, sir?

    Rhett Butler: For Mrs. Charles Hamilton.

    Dr. Meade: For whom, sir?

    Rhett Butler: Mrs. Charles Hamilton.

    Dr. Meade: Mrs. Hamilton is in mourning, Captain Butler. But I'm sure any of our Atlanta belles would be proud to...

    Rhett Butler: Dr. Meade, I said Mrs. Charles Hamilton.

    Dr. Meade: She will not consider it, sir.

    Scarlett: Oh, yes, I will.

    [Aunty Pittypat faints]

    Rhett Butler: [after the dance starts] Well, we've sort of shocked the Confederacy, Scarlett.

  • Pork: Great Gee-hossefat!

  • [choked up about Rhett and Scarlett]

    Mammy: It like to turn my blood cold, the things they say to one another.

  • [choked up about Rhett and Scarlett]

    Mammy: Mr. Rhett grabbed his gun and run out and shoot that poor pony. And for a minute, I think he gonna shoot hisself.

  • Scarlett: Just like Pa... Just like Pa!

  • [first title card]

    Title card: There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South... Here in this pretty world Gallantry took its last bow... Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave... Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization gone with the wind...

  • Scarlett: Hurry! Move, you brute!

    [She whips the horse many times, and it falls down dead]

    Prissy: Miss Scarlett, he's dead!

  • Bonnie Blue Butler: London Bridge? Will it be falling down?

    Rhett Butler: Well, it will if you want it to, darling.

  • Dr. Meade: [to Scarlett] Now you've got to listen to me! You must stay here!

    Aunt 'Pittypat' Hamilton: Without a chaperon, Dr. Meade? It simply isn't done!

    Dr. Meade: Good heavens, woman! This is a war, not a garden party!

  • Rhett Butler: Would you satisfy my curiosity on a point which has bothered me for some time?

    Scarlett: Well, what is it? Be quick!

    Rhett Butler: Tell me, Scarlett, do you never shrink from marrying men you don't love?

    Scarlett: How did you ever get out of jail? Why didn't they hang you?

  • Melanie Hamilton: So, you've got my husband intoxicated again, Captain Butler. Well, bring him in!

    Tom - Yankee Captain: I'm sorry, Mrs. Wilkes. Your husband's under arrest.

    Melanie Hamilton: If you arrest all the men who get intoxicated in Atlanta, you must have a good many Yankees in jail, Captain. Bring him in, Captain Butler, if you can walk yourself.

  • Tom - Yankee Captain: Don't touch him. He's under arrest!

    Rhett Butler: Now, Tom! What do you want to arrest him for? I've seen him drunker! I've seen you drunker! And you've seen me...

    Tom - Yankee Captain: He can lie in the gutter for all I care! I'm not a policeman.

  • Mammy: She says she's comin'. I don't know why she's comin', but she's a-comin'.

    Rhett Butler: You don't like me, Mammy.

    Mammy: Hmph!

    Rhett Butler: Now don't you argue with me. You don't. You really don't.

    [laughs]

  • Rhett Butler: So, you see I shall have to marry you.

    Scarlett: I've never heard of such bad taste.

    Rhett Butler: Would you be more convinced if I fell to my knees?

    Scarlett: Turn me loose, you varmint, and get out of here!

    Rhett Butler: Forgive me for startling you with the impetuosity of my sentiments, my dear Scarlett. I mean, my dear Mrs. Kennedy. But it cannot have escaped your notice that for some time past the friendship I have felt for you has ripened into a deeper feeling. A feeling more beautiful, more pure, more sacred. Dare I name it? Can it be love?

    Scarlett: Get up off your knees! I don't like your common jokes!

    Rhett Butler: This is an honorable proposal of marriage made at what I consider a most opportune moment. I can't go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands.

    Scarlett: You're coarse, and you're conceited. And I think this conversation has gone far enough.

  • Mammy: [about Belle Watling] Who dat? I ain't never seen hair that color before. Do you know a dyed haired woman?

    Scarlett: Wish I knew that one. She'd get my money for me!

  • Rhett Butler: Don't give yourself airs, Scarlett.

  • Scarlett: Rhett, how could you do this to me, and why should you go now that, after it's all over and I need you, why? Why?

    Rhett Butler: Why? Maybe it's because I've always had a weakness for lost causes, once they're really lost. Or maybe, maybe I'm ashamed of myself. Who knows?

  • Scarlett: [Rhett has heard Scarlett's and Ashley's fight] and Sir you should have made your presence known

    Rhett Butler: In the middle of that beautiful love scene. Now that wouldn't have been very tactful would it?

    Scarlett: Oh! You sir are no gentlemen.

    Rhett Butler: And you Ms. are no lady.

    [She is shocked and hurt]

    Rhett Butler: Don't think I hold that against you. Ladies have never held any appeal for me

  • [repeated line]

    Scarlett: Fiddledee dee

  • Rhett Butler: [to Scarlett] Open your eyes and look at me. No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing badly.

  • Rhett Butler: The right moment everyday.

    Scarlett: You're a conceited, black heated vulture and I don't know I let you come in and see me.

    Rhett Butler: I'll tell you why, Scarlett. The war can't last much longer.

    Scarlett: Really, Rhett. Why?

    Rhett Butler: There's a little battle going on right now.

  • Melanie Hamilton: Whatever happens, I'll love you just as I do now until I die.

  • Rhett Butler: Why, all we have is cotton and slaves and arrogance.

  • Field Hand: Quittin' time! Quittin' time!

    Big Sam - Field Foreman: Who says it's quittin' time?

    Field Hand: I says it's quittin' time!

    Big Sam - Field Foreman: I's the foreman. I's the one who says when it's quittin' time at Tara. Quittin' time!

  • Carreen: I guess things like hands and ladies don't matter so much anymore.

  • Melanie Hamilton: [at the door of an enclosed carriage] Who is it?

    Belle Watling: It's Miss Watling

    Melanie Hamilton: Oh, Miss Watling, won't you come in the house?

    Belle Watling: Oh, no, I couldn't do that Mrs Wilkes; you come in and set a minute with me

    [Melanie gets in & sits beside Belle]

    Melanie Hamilton: How can I thank you enough for what you did for us? How can any of us thank you enough?

    Belle Watling: I got your note saying you were going to call on me and thank me. Oh Mrs Wilkes, you must have lost your mind. I come up here as soon as it was dark to tell you you mustn't even think of such things. Why I'm... Why you're... Well it wouldn't be fittin' at all

    Melanie Hamilton: Wouldn't be fitting for me to call on a kind woman who saved my husband's life?

    Belle Watling: Mrs Wilkes, there ain't never been a woman in town that's been nice to me the way you was; I mean about the money for the hospital, you know, and I don't forget a kindness. I got to thinkin' about you bein' left a widow, with a little boy - he's a nice little boy, your boy, Mrs Wilkes. I got a boy myself...

    Melanie Hamilton: Oh you have? Does he live

    Belle Watling: Oh, no, he ain't in Atlanta; he ain't never been here. He's off at school. I ain't seen him since he was little, and I... Well, anyways, if it had been that Mrs Kennedy's husband by himself, I wouldn't lift a finger to help. She's a mighty cold woman, prancin' about Atlanta by herself. She killed her husband, same as if she shot him

    Melanie Hamilton: You mustn't say unkind things about my sister-in-law

    Belle Watling: Oh. Please don't haze me Mrs Wilkes; I forgot how you liked her. But she just ain't in the same class with you, and I can't help it if I think so. Well, anyways, I gotta be goin'. I'm scared somebody'll recognize this carriage if I stay here any longer; that wouldn't do you no good. And Mrs Wilkes, if you ever see me on the street, you don't have to speak to me; I'll understand

    Melanie Hamilton: I shall be proud to speak to you, proud to be under obligation to you. I hope we meet again

    Belle Watling: Oh, no, that wouldn't be fittin'. Goodnight Mrs Wilkes

    Melanie Hamilton: Goodnight Miss Watling.

    [Melanie gets out of the carriage]

    Melanie Hamilton: And you're wrong about Mrs Kennedy; she's broken hearted about her husband

  • Scarlett: Why don't you just say it, you coward? You're afraid to marry me. You'd rather live with that silly little fool who can't open her mouth except to say, "yes" and "no" and raise a passle of mealy-mouthed brats just like her!

    Ashley: You mustn't say things like that about Melanie.

    Scarlett: Who are you to tell me I mustn't! You led me on! You made me believe you wanted to marry me!

    Ashley: Now, Scarlett be fair. I never at any time...

    Scarlett: You did! It's true! You did! I'll hate till I die! I can't think of anything bad enough to call you!

    [she slaps him]

  • Rhett Butler: Open your eyes and look at me. No, I don't think I will kiss you. Although you need kissing badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often and by someone who knows how.

    Scarlett: And I suppose you think you're the proper person.

    Rhett Butler: I might be... if the right moment ever came.

    Scarlett: You're a conceited, blackhearted varmint Rhett Butler. I don't know why I let come and see me.

    Rhett Butler: I'll tell you why, Scarlett. Because I'm the only man over sixteen and under sixty who's around to show you a good time.

  • Scarlett: You low-down, cowardly, nasty thing you! They were right! Everybody was right! You - You aren't a gentleman.

    Rhett Butler: A minor point at such a moment. Here, if anyone lays a hand on that Nag shoot him but don't make a mistake and shoot the Nag.

    Scarlett: Go on! I want you to go! I hope a cannonball lands slap on you! I hope your blown into a million pieces! I...

    Rhett Butler: Nevermind the rest. I follow your general idea. And when I'm dead on the altar of my country I hope your conscience hurts you. Goodbye, Scarlett.

  • Rhett Butler: You can come to my hanging and I'll remember you in my will.

    Scarlett: The only thing I'm afraid of is they won't hang you in time to pay the taxes on Tara!

  • Scarlett: I can't let Tara go. I won't let it go while there's a breath left in my body.

  • Scarlett: How do I look?

    Rhett Butler: Awful. Just awful.

    Scarlett: Why? What's the matter?

  • Ashley: [to Scarlet] I never want you to be anything but completely happy.

  • Bonnie Blue Butler: Daddy, let me, let me!

  • Mammy: Lordy, Miss Melly. I sure is glad you's come.

    Melanie Hamilton: Oh, Mammy, this house won't seem the same without Bonnie. How's Miss Scarlett bearing up?

    Mammy: Miss Melly, this here's done broke her heart. But I didn't fetch you on Miss Scarlett's account. What that child got to stand, the good Lord give her strength to stand. It's Mr. Rhett I's worried about. He done lost his mind these last couple of days.

    Melanie Hamilton: Oh, no, Mammy, no.

    Mammy: I ain't never seen no man, black or white, set such store on any child. When Dr. Meade say her neck broke, Mr. Rhett grabbed his gun and run out and shoot that poor pony. And for a minute, I think he gonna shoot hisself.

    Melanie Hamilton: Oh, poor Captain Butler

    Mammy: Miss Scarlett called him a murderer for teaching that child to jump. She said, "You give me my baby what you killed." And then he say Miss Scarlett ain't never cared nothing about Miss Bonnie. It like to turn my blood cold, the things they say to one another.

    Melanie Hamilton: Stop, Mammy, don't tell me any more.

    Mammy: And then that night Mr. Rhett, he locked hisself in the nursery with Miss Bonnie. He wouldn't even open the door when Miss Scarlett beat on it and hollered to him and that's where he's been for two whole days.

    Melanie Hamilton: Oh, Mammy!

    Mammy: And then this evening, Miss Scarlett shouted through the door and said: "The funeral's set for tomorrow morning." and he says, "You try that and I kills you tomorrow. Do you think I's gonna put my child in the dark when she's so scared of it?"

    Melanie Hamilton: Oh, Mammy, Mammy! He *has* lost his mind!

    Mammy: Yes'm, that's the God's truth. He ain't gonna let us bury that child. You gotta help us Miss Melly.

    Melanie Hamilton: Oh, but I can't intrude.

    Mammy: If you can't help us, who can? Mr. Rhett always set great store by your opinion. Please, Miss Melly.

    Melanie Hamilton: I'll do what I can, Mammy.

  • Title card: There was a land of cavaliers and cotton fields called the old south. Here in this pretty world gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of knights and their ladies fair. Of master and of slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A civilization gone with the wind.

  • Cathleen Calvert: Scarlett! My dear, he isn't received. He's had to spend most of his time at war because his folks in Charleston won't even speak to him. He was expelled from West Point, he's so fast, and then there's that business about that girl he wouldn't marry.

    Scarlett: Tell, tell!

    Cathleen Calvert: Well, he took her out buggy riding in the late afternoon without a chaperon, and then... and then he refused to marry her!

    [Whispers in Scarlett's ear]

    Scarlett: [Gasps, then whispers in Cathleen's ear]

    Cathleen Calvert: No. But she was ruined, just the same!

  • Gerald O'Hara: [the men are discussing the prospect of going to war with the North] And what does the captain of our troops say?

    Ashley: Well, gentlemen, if Georgia fights, I go with her. But like my father I hope that the Yankees let us leave the Union in peace.

    Man: But Ashley, Ashley, they've insulted us!

    Charles Hamilton: You can't mean you don't want war!

    Ashley: Most of the miseries of the world were caused by wars. And when the wars were over, no one ever knew what they were about.

    Gerald O'Hara: [the other men protest] Now gentlemen, Mr. Butler has been up North I hear. Don't you agree with us, Mr. Butler?

    Rhett Butler: I think it's hard winning a war with words, gentlemen.

    Charles Hamilton: What do you mean, sir?

    Rhett Butler: I mean, Mr. Hamilton, there's not a cannon factory in the whole South.

    Man: What difference does that make, sir, to a gentleman?

    Rhett Butler: I'm afraid it's going to make a great deal of difference to a great many gentlemen, sir.

    Charles Hamilton: Are you hinting, Mr. Butler, that the Yankees can lick us?

    Rhett Butler: No, I'm not hinting. I'm saying very plainly that the Yankees are better equipped than we. They've got factories, shipyards, coalmines... and a fleet to bottle up our harbors and starve us to death. All we've got is cotton, and slaves and... arrogance.

    Man: That's treacherous!

    Charles Hamilton: I refuse to listen to any renegade talk!

    Rhett Butler: Well, I'm sorry if the truth offends you.

    Charles Hamilton: Apologies aren't enough sir. I hear you were turned out of West Point, Mr. Rhett Butler. And that you aren't received in a decent family in Charleston. Not even your own.

    Rhett Butler: I apologize again for all my shortcomings. Mr. Wilkes, Perhaps you won't mind if I walk about and look over your place. I seem to be spoiling everybody's brandy and cigars and... dreams of victory.

  • [Letter to Scarlett from General Wade Hampton on the death of her husband Charles Hamilton: Though he was not vouchsafed a hero's death upon the field of glory, he was nonetheless a hero, dying in camp here of pneumonia, following an attack of the measles]

  • Mammy: [Regarding the rebuilding of Atlanta after the Civil War has ended] What's come over this here town?

    Scarlett: Yankees have come over it! Same as they've come over all of us.

  • Jonas Wilkerson - Field Overseer: Mrs. O'Hara, we finished plowing the creek bottom today. What do you want me to start on tomorrow?

    Ellen - His Wife: Mr. Wilkerson, I've just come from Emmie Slattery's bedside: Your child has been born.

    Jonas Wilkerson - Field Overseer: My child, ma'am? I sure I don't understand.

    Ellen - His Wife: Has been born and mercifully has died... Good night, Mr. Wilkerson.

    [she walks away inside the house for him]

  • Ellen - His Wife: Mr. O'Hara? You must dismiss Jonas Wilkerson.

    Gerald O'Hara: Dismiss him, Mrs. O'Hara? He's the best overseer in the county.

    Ellen - His Wife: He must go tomorrow morning, first thing.

    Gerald O'Hara: But...

    [Ellen whispers in his ear]

    Gerald O'Hara: No!

    Ellen - His Wife: Yes.

    Gerald O'Hara: [laughing] The Yankee Wilkerson and the white-trash Slattery girl?

    Ellen - His Wife: We'll discuss it later, Mr. O'Hara.

    Gerald O'Hara: Yes, Mrs. O'Hara.

  • Convalescent Soldier: This animules is driving me crazy!

  • Dr. Meade: [sees his leg is hurt] This leg's gonna come off, soldier.

    Amputation Case: No, don't! Leave me alone!

    Dr. Meade: I'm sorry, soldier.

  • Rhett Butler: [when Scarlett throws a vase] Has the war started?

  • [repeated line]

    Scarlett: Great balls of fire!

  • Scarlett: Oh, Bother Melanie!

  • Rhett Butler: The Cause. The cause of living in the past is dying right in front of us.

  • [the Meade family mourns their son Darcy. Mrs. Meade crying]

    Dr. Meade: Don't, my dear. Not here. Let's go home.

    [Melanie comes to Dr. Meade]

    Melanie Hamilton: Dr. Meade, not...?

    Dr. Meade: Yes. Our boy, Darcy.

    Mrs. Meade: [cries] I was making these mittens for him. He won't need them now.

    Phil Meade: Well, I'm going to enlist! I'll show 'em, I'll kill all these yankees!

    Melanie Hamilton: Phil Meade, you hush your mouth. Do you think it will help your mother to have you off getting shot, too? I never heard of anything so silly.

  • [Mammy sees that Ellen is arriving home]

    Mammy: Yon she comes! Miss Scarlett, Miss Suellen, Miss Careen, your mother's home! Acting like a wet nurse to them low-down poor white trash Slatterys instead of being here eating her supper. Cookie, stir up the fire! Miss Ellen's home. Miss Ellen's got no business wearing herself out. Pork?

    Pork: Yes, ma'am.

    Mammy: Take the lamp out on a porch. Wearing herself out.

    [turns to Gerald O'Hara]

    Mammy: Mr. Gerald, Miss Ellen's home.

    [turns back to herself]

    Mammy: Wearing herself out waiting on poor white trash.

    [hearing dog barking, turns to dog]

    Mammy: Shut up, dog! Barking in the house like that!

    [to the little boy]

    Mammy: Get up from there, boy. Don't you hear Miss Ellen's coming? Get out there and get her medicine chest.

  • [Scarlett O'Hara sees that Jonas Wilkerson and Emmy Slattery are entering the Tara house]

    Scarlett: Why, it's Emmy Slattery.

    Emmy Slattery: Yes'm, it's me.

    Scarlett: [furiously] Stop!

    Jonas Wilkerson - Field Overseer: You haven't forgotten your old overseer, have you? Huh? Well, Emmy is Mrs. Wilkerson now.

    Scarlett: Get off those steps, you trashy wench. Get off this land.

    Jonas Wilkerson - Field Overseer: You can't speak that way to my wife.

    Scarlett: Wife. High time you made her your wife. Who baptized your other brats after you killed my mother?

    Jonas Wilkerson - Field Overseer: We came out here to pay a call. A friendly call to talk a little business with some old friends.

    Scarlett: Friends. When were we ever friends with the like of you?

    Jonas Wilkerson - Field Overseer: Still high and mighty, ain't you. Well, I know about you. I know your father's turned idiot. You can't pay your taxes, and I come out here to offer a place of you to make your right good offer. Emmy's had a hankering to live here.

    Scarlett: [furiously] Get off this place, you dirty yankee.

    Jonas Wilkerson - Field Overseer: You bog-trotting, high-flying Irish will find out who's running things around here when you get sold out for taxes. I'll buy this place, lock, stock and barrel, and I'll live in it. But, I'll wait for the sheriff's sale.

    [Scarlett sees a damp clay in her hand and turns to him, throws and hits Jonas Wilkerson's face]

    Scarlett: That's all of Tara you'll ever get.

    Jonas Wilkerson - Field Overseer: [wiping his face] You'll be sorry for that.