Gone With A Wind Quotes

“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 ...”

— Ben Hecht

“I'm only leaving you
for a handful of days,
but it feels as though
I'll be gone forever--
the way the door closes
behind me with such solidity,
the way my suitcase
carries everything
I'd need for an eternity
of traveling light.
I've left my hotel number
on your desk, instructions
about the dog and heating dinner. But
like the weather front
they warn is on its way
with its switchblades
of wind and ice,
our lives have minds
of their own.”

— Linda Pastan

“To me, the summer wind in the Midwest is one of the most melancholy things in all life. It comes from so far away and blows so gently and yet so relentlessly; it rustles the leaves and the branches of the maple trees in a sort of symphony of sadness, and it doesn't pass on and leave them still. It just keeps coming, like the infinite flow of Old Man River. You could
and you do
wear out your lifetime on the dusty plains with that wind of futility blowing in your face. And when you are worn out and gone, the wind
still saying nothing, still so gentle and sad and timeless
is still blowing across the prairies, and will blow in the faces of the little men who follow you, forever.”

— Ernie Pyle

“Out of the clouds I hear a faint bark, as of a faraway dog. It is strange how the world cocks its ear to that sound, wondering. Soon it is louder: the honk of geese, invisible, but coming on.
The flock emerges from the low clouds, a tattered banner of birds, dipping and rising, blown up and blown down, blown together and blown apart, but advancing, the wind wrestling lovingly with each winnowing wing. When the flock is a blur in the far sky I hear the last honk, sounding taps for summer.
It is warm behind the driftwood now, for the wind has gone with the geese. So would I
if I were the wind.”

— Aldo Leopold

“You think you cannot live anymore. You think that the light of your soul has been put out and that you will stay in the dark forever. But when you are engulfed by such solid darkness, when you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. And only then do you come to realize that eyesight conflicts with inner knowledge. No eye sees so clear and sharp as the eye of love. After grief comes another season, another valley, another you. And the lover who is nowhere to be found, you start to see everywhere.
You see him in the drop of water that falls into the ocean, in the high tide that follows the waxing of the moon, or in the morning wind that spreads its fresh smell; you see him in the geomancy symbols in the sand, in the tiny particles of rock glittering under the sun, in the smile of a newborn baby, or in your throbbing vein. How can you say Shams is gone when he is everywhere and in everything?”

— Elif Shafak

“Now comes the darkening sky and a cold wind that passes right through you, as though you are not there, it passes through you as though it does not care whether you are alive or dead, for you will be gone and the wind will still be there, licking the grass flat upon the ground, not caring whether the soil is at a freeze or thaw, for it will freeze and thaw again, and soon your bones, now hot with blood and thick-juicy with marrow, will be dry and brittle and flake and freeze and thaw with the weight of the dirt upon you, and the last moisture of your body will be drawn up to the surface by the grass, and the wind will come and knock it down and push you back against the rocks, or it will scrape you up under its nails and take you out to sea in a wild screaming of snow.”

— Hannah Kent

“Lords of fire and earth and water,
Lords of moon and wind and sky,
Come now to the Old Man's daughter,
Come from fathers long gone by.
Bring blue from a distance eye.
Lords of water, earth, and fire,
Lords of wind and snow and rain,
Give to my heart's desire.
Life as all life comes with pain,
But blue will come to us again.”

— Madeleine L'Engle

“'Anchorman' is my favorite movie of all time and Ron Burgundy is one of my favorite characters of all time. It's my 'Gone With the Wind.'”

— Eva Mendes

“Ah, dear, sweet Eden. To quote the great Rhett Butler, you need to be fucked and by someone who knows how."
"What version of Gone with the Wind did you grow up watching?"
"There are a lot of liberties taken with Spanish subtitles.”

— Karina Halle

“How do we imagine a great love?
Perhaps something along the lines of Gone with the Wind or Titanic is what comes to mind. But those aren't really about love itself, but about a situation. Everything becomes more grand when it takes place in the context of a civil war, a shipwreck, or natural catastrophe. But that is like judging the painting by the frame. That the Mona Lisa should be judged a masterpiece largely because of the carvings that surround it.
Love is love. In the dramatic stories, the people involved are physically willing to give up their lives for each other, but that is exactly what happens in the great but everyday love also. You give your lives to each other the whole way and every day, until death.”

— John Ajvide Lindqvist

“If Gone With the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't.”

— Margaret Mitchell

“I love being as bad as possible! You've got to love a bad girl. Look at 'Gone With the Wind,' Scarlett O'Hara - total bad girl, but you love her.”

— Katie McGrath

“For the entire state of Georgia, having the premiere of Gone With the Wind on home ground was like winning the Battle of Atlanta 75 years late.”

— Anne Edwards

“All the way back she talked haltingly about herself, and Amory's love waned slowly with the moon. At her door they started from habit to kiss good night, but she could not run into his arms, nor were they stretched to meet her as in the week before. For a minute they stood there, hating each other with a bitter sadness. But as Amory had loved himself in Eleanor, so now what he hated was only a mirror. Their poses were strewn about the pale dawn like broken glass. The stars were long gone and there were left only the little sighing gusts of wind and the silences between ... but naked souls are poor things ever, and soon he turned homewards and let new lights come in with the sun.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“She's got so many azalea bushes, her yard's going to look like Gone With the Wind come spring. I don't like azaleas and I sure didn't like that movie, the way they made slavery look like a big happy tea party. If I'd played Mammy, I'd of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Maker her own damn man-catching dress.”

— Kathryn Stockett

“I have never connected with 'Gone With the Wind.' 'Lawrence of Arabia' leaves me cold.”

— Stephen Hunter

“I love those books like 'Gone with the Wind,' the huge, sweeping family sagas.”

— M.K. Hobson

“There are two of my favorite books, 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Gone With The Wind', that were made into movies. And I love those movies as much as I love the books. That's really rare.”

— Tatiana De Rosnay

“I was just a mini-star when we did 'Gone With the Wind.'”

— Olivia De Havilland

“She had always liked what Scarlett O'Hara said in Gone with the Wind: I'll think about it tomorrow. Not anymore.”

— Ken Follett

“The Unchanging
Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten
These were the same for Sappho as for me.
Two thousand years-much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then.”

— Sara Teasdale

“A memory came to me. One time, in middle school, a famous author came to talk to our class and give a writing workshop. One of the things she told us about writing a novel was that the story should be about what the main character wants. Dorothy wants to go home to Kansas. George Milton wants a farm of his own. Amelia Sedley wants to marry her darling George and live happily ever after. The end of the story, according to the famous author, is when the character either gests what he wants or realizes he's never going to get it. Or sometimes, she said, like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, realizes she doesn't actually want what she thought she wanted all along.
pg. 324 of Bewitching”

— Alex Flinn

“I had a dresser who literally squeezed me in like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.”

— Glenn Close

“J. K. Rowling's first 'Harry Potter' manuscript was rejected 12 times. Stephen King's 'Carrie' was rejected 30 times. 'Gone With The Wind' was rejected 38 times. I was immensely proud to have beaten them all.”

— Ashwin Sanghi

“I'm not a fan of 'Gone With the Wind.' I didn't like the movie. I didn't like the book.”

— Octavia Spencer

“I just met someone who read Gone With the Wind 62 times for exactly that same reason. She couldn't bear that it wasn't real. She wanted to live in it.”

— Alison Bechdel

“Our touchstones of slavery are 'Song of the South,' 'Gone With the Wind' and 'The Birth of a Nation.' It's hard to separate the cinematic quality from the underlying themes. I appreciate the films, but the message was repugnant.”

— John Ridley

“The 1930s birthed two great agrarian novels: 'Gone with the Wind' from the viewpoint of the ruling class, 'The Grapes of Wrath' for the underclass. And both were turned into movies that dared to be true to the books' controversial themes.”

— Richard Corliss

“You will live to love again. You know you have lost your springtime girl, your Molly on the beach with the wind in her brown hair and red cloak. You have been gone too long from her, and too much has befallen you both. And what you loved, what both of you truly loved, was not each other. It was the time of your life. It was the spring of your years, and life running strong in you, and war on your doorstep and your strong, perfect bodies. Look back, in truth. You will find you recall fully as many quarrels and tears as you do lovemaking and kisses. Fitz. Be wise. Let her go, and keep those memories intact. Save what you can of her, and let her keep what she can of the wild and daring boy she loved. Because both he and that merry little miss are no more than memories anymore." She shook her head. "No more than memories.”

— Robin Hobb

“You look at Gone With the Wind, how right Vivian Leigh was for that. Don't know if that would happen today.”

— Kelly Lynch

“In terms of romantic films, all-time romantic films, I really like 'Gone With the Wind.' And I realize I sound so cliched saying that, but there's something so absolutely romantic about it.”

— Freida Pinto

“It's a movie, OK? I went to see GONE WITH THE WIND, but did I really believe there was a guy named Rhett Butler who said, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"? No. Movies need heroes and villains, and real life doesn't usually have heroes and villains. Real life has a lot of shades of gray, and moves have black and white even when they're in color.”

— Don Hewitt

“My mother gave me an Oscar de la Renta Gone with the Wind ballgown dress. I've never had a place to wear it out to because it's so old-fashioned fancy and beautiful, so I need to find a place to wear it but if I don't, I'll still keep it forever.”

— Elizabeth Jagger

“There are certain stereotypes that are offensive. Some of them don't worry me, though. For instance, I have always thought that Mammy character in Gone with the Wind was mighty funny. And I just loved "Amos 'n' Andy" on the radio. So you see, I have enough confidence in myself that those things did not bother me. I could laugh.”

— Annie Elizabeth Delany

“I did not read Gone with the Wind, although I've seen the movie, and I read every book on Margaret Mitchell.”

— Shannen Doherty

“Make up your spiritual accounts daily; see how matters stand between God and your souls (Psalm 77:6). Often reckonings keep God and conscience friends. Do with your hearts as you do with your watches, wind them up every morning by prayer, and at night examine whether your hearts have gone true all that day, whether the wheels of your affections have moved swiftly toward heaven.”

— Thomas Watson

“There is a mythic view of the South that's symbolized by the film "Gone With The Wind" that looks back fondly at slavery as a time when everything was happily in place - in place for whites.”

— William R. Ferris

“My favorite movie is The Wizard of Oz. I love the fairy tale of it. And Gone With the Wind was always one of my favorites because it's so dramatic and stunning.”

— Meredith Brooks

“He's halfway sick and halfway stoned. He'd sure like to kick, but he's too far gone. So they wind him down with methadone.”

— James Taylor

“A lone maple leaf resting on sand Have you ever been out for a late autumn walk in the closing part of the afternoon, and suddenly looked up to realize that the leaves have practically all gone? And the sun has set and the day gone before you knew it, and with that a cold wind blows across the landscape? That's retirement.”

— Stephen Leacock

“I remember one thing that marred this time for me; the movie "Gone with the Wind." When it played in Mason [MI], I was the only Negro in the theater, and when Butterfly McQueen went into her act, I felt like crawling under the rug.”

— Malcolm X