Scarlett O’Hara is the quintessential anti-heroine of ‘Gone With the Wind.’
She remains one of the most enduring characters ever inked on the canvas of American literature.
Today, we invite you to take a journey paused by the intermissions of awe, intrigue, and the gallant charm that this Southern belle sprinkles throughout the narrative labyrinth of the classic saga.
Gone With The Wind Quotes With Page Numbers
Scarlett O’Hara Quotes Gone With The Wind
“To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O’Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 2, Page 38
“Life was not easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman’s lot. It was a man’s world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 3, Page 58
“You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate,’ Ellen told her daughter. ‘You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Ellen to Scarlett, Chapter 3, Page 59
“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.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 4, Page 73
“Sir, ”she said,” you are no gentleman!”
An apt observation,” he answered airily.”And, you, Miss, are no lady.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 6, Pages 119. 120
“Vanity was stronger than love at sixteen and there was no room in her hot heart now for anything but hate.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett O’Hara, Chapter 6, Page 124
“Would it please you if I said your eyes were twin goldfish bowls filled to the brim with the clearest green water and that when the fish swim to the top, as they are doing now, you are devilishly charming?”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara, Chapter 9, Page 194
“War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett O’Hara, Chapter 12, Page 219
“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, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara, Chapter 13, Page 245
“I’d cut up my heart for you to wear if you wanted it.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter Chapter 15, Page 273
“You should be kissed and by someone who knows how.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 17, Page 310
“As to why I have made no further advances,’ he pursued blandly, as though she had not signified that the conversation was at an end, ‘I am waiting for you to grow up a little more. You see, it wouldn’t be much fun for me to kiss you now and I’m quite selfish about my pleasures. I never fancied kissing children.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 17, Page 311
“Gradually, Scarlett drew courage from the brave faces of her friends and from the merciful adjustment which nature makes when what cannot be cured must be endured.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 19, Page 330
“She was less frightened also because life had taken on the quality of a dream, a dream too terrible to be real. It wasn’t possible that she, Scarlett O’Hara, should be in such a predicament, with the danger of death about her every hour, every minute. It wasn’t possible that the quiet tenor of life could have changed so completely in so short a time.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 19, Page 330
“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.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Rhett Butler to Scarlett, Chapter 23, Page 389
“I love you, Scarlett, because we are so much alike, renegades, both of us, dear, and selfish rascals. Neither of us cares a rap if the whole world goes to pot, so long as we are safe and comfortable.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Rhett Butler to Scarlett, Chapter 23, Page 390
“…all the bullying instincts in her nature rose to the surface. It was not that she was basically unkind. It was because she was so frightened and unsure of herself she was harsh lest others learn her inadequacies: and refuse her authority.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 25, Page 432
“It was better to know the worst than to wonder.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 26, Page 446
“It’s a curse—this not wanting to look on naked realities. Until the war, life was never more real to me than a shadow show on a curtain. And I preferred it so. I did not like the outlines of things to be too sharp. I like them gently blurred, a little hazy… In other words, Scarlett, I am a coward.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 31, Page 528
“She saw in his eyes defeat of her wild dreams, her mad desires.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 31, Page 533
“Ashley watched her go and saw her square her small shoulders as she went. And that gesture went to his heart, more than any words she had spoken.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 31, Page 535
“Suddenly she hated them all because they were different from her, because they carried their losses with an air that she could never attain, would never wish to attain. She hated them, these smiling, light-footed strangers, these proud fools who took pride in something they had lost, seeming to be proud that they had lost it.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 35, Page 609
“Never pass up new experiences, Scarlett, They enrich the mind.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Rhett Butler to Scarlett, Chapter 35, Page 609
“She couldn’t survey the wreck of the world with an air of casual unconcern.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 35, Page 609
“Talking to Rhett was comparable only to one thing, the feeling of ease and comfort afforded by a pair of old slippers after dancing in a pair too tight.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 33, Page 626
“Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 33, Page 668
“How wonderful to know someone who was bad and dishonorable and a cheat and a liar, when all the world was filled with people who would not lie to save their souls and who would rather starve than do a dishonorable deed!”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 47, Page 826
“If I said I was madly in love with you, I’d be lying and what’s more, you’d know it.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 47, Page 837
“His voice stopped and they looked for a long quiet moment into each other’s eyes and between them lay the sunny lost youth that they had so unthinkingly shared.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett and Rhet, Chapter 53, Page 925
“He looked at her out of black blank eyes that made no opportunity for her to speak. And apologies, once postponed, became harder and harder to make, and finally impossible.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 60, Page 1000
“Burdens are for shoulders strong enough to carry them.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 61, Page 1015
“I loved something I made up, something that’s just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn’t see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes—and not him at all.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 61, Page 1016
“She could see so clearly now that he was only a childish fancy, no more important really than her spoiled desire for the aquamarine earbobs she had coaxed out of Gerald. For, once she owned the earbobs, they had lost their value, as everything except money lost its value once it was hers. ”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, The Narrator about Scarlett, Chapter 61, Page 1016
“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, Gone with the Wind, Rhet about Scarlet, Chapter 63, Page 1029
“I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, Chapter 63, Page 1037
What does Scarlett O Hara say at the end of Gone with the Wind?
“After all, tomorrow is another day.”
~Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Chapter 63, Page 1037