IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS - QUOTES AND ANALYSIS (Continued)

18.) "There was nothing else she did have, nothing but this red land, this land she had been willing to throw away like a torn handkerchief only a few minutes before. Now, it was dear to her again and she wondered dully what madness had possessed her to hold it so lightly." - Narrator, pg. 536 Scarlett's recognition that her home is all she really has left to her and that it is worth protecting.

19.) "In the dull twilight of the winter afternoon she came to the end of a long road which had begun the night Atlanta fell. She had set her feet upon that road a spoiled, selfish and untried girl, full of youth, warm of emotion, easily bewildered by life. Now, at the end of the road, there was nothing left of that girl. Hunger and hard labor, fear and constant strain, the terrors of war and the terrors of Reconstruction had taken away all warmth and youth and softness. About the core of her being, a shell of hardness had formed and, little by little, layer by layer, the shell had thickened during the endless months." - Narrator. pg. 542 Narrator explaining the changes that have taken place in Scarlett that allow her to act as she does in following chapters.

20.) "Advice seems to be the only thing I can give you at present...When you are trying to get something out of a man, don't blurt it out as you did to me. Do try to be more subtle, more seductive. It gets better results. You used to know how, to perfection. But just now when you offered me your-er-collateral for my money you looked as hard as nails. I've seen eyes like yours above a dueling pistol twenty paces from me and they aren't a pleasant sight. They evoke no ardor in the male breast. That's no way to handle men, my dear." - Rhett. pg. 587 Rhett gently scolding Scarlett for approaching him so viciously in her request for money. He reminds her that there are better ways to try to get something from a man.

21.) "She knew she had changed too, but not as they had changed, and it puzzled her. She sat and watched them and she felt herself an alien among them, as alien and lonely as if she had come from another world, speaking a language they did not understand and she did not understand theirs. Then she knew that this feeling was the same one she felt with Ashley. with him and with people of his kind-and they made up most of her world-she felt outside of something she could not understand" - Narrator. pg. 607 Observation of Scarlett's thoughts as she ponders the difference between herself and the people of Atlanta after the war.

22.) "But, no matter what sights they had seen, what menial tasks they had done and would have to do, they remained ladies and gentlemen, royalty in exile-bitter, aloof, incurious, kind to one another, diamond hard, as bright and brittle as the crystals of the broken chandelier over their heads." - Narrator. pg. 608 Scarlett's confused observation of the attitudes of the southern ladies.

23.) "She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile. Of the sweetness and courage and unyielding pride of her friends, Scarlett saw nothing. She saw only a silly stiff-neckedness which observed facts but smiled and refused to look them in the face." - Narrator. pg. 608 More of Scarlett's thoughts

24.) "The women bore themselves like ladies, and she knew they were ladies, though menial tasks were their daily lot and they didn't know where their next dress was coming from...'Ah!' she thought angrily, sucking in her breath. 'That's the difference! Even though they're poor, they still feel like ladies and I don't. The silly fools don't seem to realize that you can't be a lady without money!' Even in this flash of revelation, she realized vaguely that, foolish though they seemed, theirs was the right attitude." - Narrator. pg. 609 Narrator explaining Scarlett's awareness of the correct attitude even though she couldn't bring herself to share it.

25.) "All you've done is to be different from other women and you've made a little success at it. As I've told you before, that is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned! Scarlett, the mere fact that you've made a success of your mill is an insult to every man who hasn't succeeded. Remember, a well-bred female's place is in the home and she should know nothing about this busy, brutal world." - Rhett. pg. 678 Rhett trying to explain to Scarlett why the other women disapprove of her.

26.) "My dear Miss Melly, it is always a privilege and a pleasure to be in your home, for you-and ladies like you-are the hearts of all of us, all that have left. They have taken the flower of our manhood and the laughter of our young women. They have broken our health, uprooted our lives and unsettled our habits. They have ruined our prosperity, set us back fifty years and placed too heavy a burden on the shoulders of our boys who should be in school and our old men who should be sleeping in the sun. But we will build back because we have hearts like yours to build upon. And as long as we have them, the Yankees can have the rest." - Dr. Mead. pg. 638 Dr. Mead praising Melanie for the encouragement she gives to the people.

27.) "It isn't losing their money, my pet. I tell you it's losing their world-the world they were raised in. They're like fish out of water or cats with wings. They were raised to be certain persons, to do certain things, to occupy certain niches. And those persons and things and niches disappeared forever when General Lee arrived at Appomattox. Oh, Scarlett, don't look so stupid! What is there for Ashley Wilkes to do, now that his home is gone and his plantation taken up for taxes and fine gentlemen are going twenty for a penny? Can he work with his head or his hands? I'll bet you've lost money hand over fist since he took over that mill." - Rhett. pg. 770 Rhett trying to explain to Scarlett why Ashley and others like him are unable to adjust to the postwar conditions.

28.) "It's something you can't understand, not possessing any-any common courtesy, common good breeding. It's the realization that if all of us don't hang together and submerge our own small hates, we can't expect to beat the Yankees. But you-you-you've done all you could to lower the prestige of decent people-working and bringing shame on a good husband, giving Yankees and riffraff the right to laugh at us and make insulting remarks about our lack of gentility. Yankees don't know that you aren't one of us and have never been. Yankees haven't sense enough to know that you haven't any gentility. And when you've ridden about the woods exposing yourself to attack, you've exposed every well-behaved woman in town to attack by putting temptation in the way of darkies and mean white trash." - India Wilkes. pg. 795 India Wilkes telling Scarlett why the women have such a negative opinion of her.

29.) "He was actually asking her to marry him; he was committing the incredible. Once she had planned how she would torment him should he ever propose. Once she had thought that if he ever spoke those words she would humble him and make him feel her power and take a malicious pleasure in doing it. Now he had spoken and the plans did not even occur to her, for he was no more in her power than he had ever been. In fact, he held the whip hand of the situation so completely that she was as flustered as a girl at her first proposal and she could only blush and stammer." - Narrator. pg. 832 Narrator explaining Scarlett's reaction to Rhett's proposal.

30.) "Why should you so resent hearing the truth, my pet? You must bring Mammy a present. It would break her heart if you didn't-and hearts like hers are too valuable to be broken." - Rhett. pg. 851 Rhett on his and Scarlett's honeymoon; he is agreeing with Mammy's comments about him and insisting that Scarlett include Mammy in the presents.

31.) "Damn our money! all our money can't buy what I want for her. I'd rather Bonnie was invited to eat dry bread in the Picards' miserable house or Mrs. Elsing's rickety barn than to be the belle of a Republican inaugural ball. Scarlett, you've been a fool. You should have insured a place for your children in the social scheme years ago-but you didn't You didn't even bother to keep what position you had. And it's too much to hope that you'll mend your ways at this late date. You're too anxious to make money and too fond of bullying people." - Rhett. pg. 903 Rhett realizing the lifestyle they have chosen will cause harm to their children, especially Bonnie.

32.) "Oh, yes, you've been faithful to me because Ashley wouldn't have you. but, hell, I wouldn't have grudged him your body. I know how little bodies mean-especially women's bodies. But I do grudge him your heart and your dear, hard unscrupulous, stubborn mind. He doesn't want your mind, the fool, and I don't want your body. I can buy women cheap. But I do want your mind and your heart, and I'll never have them, any more than you'll ever have Ashley's mind. And that's why I'm sorry for you." - Rhett. pg. 938 Rhett berating Scarlett in the evening after Ashley's birthday party.

33.) "He never really existed at all, except in my imagination," she thought wearily. "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." - Scarlett. pg. 1016 Scarlett realizing that she is not in love with Ashley after all.

34.) "I'll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of someway to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day." - Scarlett to herself. pg. 1037 One of the most famous quotes of the novel. Scarlett turning to her usual solution for coping with the fact that Rhett is leaving her.