Memorable quotes for
Gone with the Wind (1939) More at IMDbPro »

Prissy: Mammy, here's Miss Scarlet'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 forhead]
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: Oh, isn't it exciting, Scarlett? You know those fool Yanks may 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...
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 eat juss a little honey!
Scarlett: No! I'm going to have a good time today... And do my eating at the barbeque
Mammy: If you dont care what folks says about dis family I does! I is told ya and told ya that you can always tell a lady by the way she eats in front of folks like a bird and I ain't aimin' for you to go to Mr. John Wilkes and eat like a field hand and gobble like a hog!
Scarlett: Fiddle-dee-dee! Ashley told me he likes to see a girl with a healthy appetite!
Mammy: What gentlemen says and what they thinks is 2 diffrent things, and I ain't noticed Mr. Ashley askin' for to marry you
Scarlett: [Turns around slowly to face Mammy then throws her umbrella and stuffs food into her mouth]
Mammy: Now don't eat too fast. Ain't no need 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 again.

---

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, dark one.
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: Twenty dollars. Twenty dollars for Miss Maybelle Merriwether.
Tony Fontaine: Twenty five dollars for Miss Fanny Elsing.
Dr. Meade: Only twenty five dollars to give?
Rhett Butler: One hundred and fifty dollars 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.

---

Pork: Great Gee-hossefat!

---

[choked up about Rhett and Scarlett]
Mammy: It makes my blood run cold, the things they say to one another.

---

[choked up about Rhett and Scarlett]
Mammy: He went out and shot that poor pony, and, for a minute, I thought he was gonna shoot himself.

---

Scarlett: She's being 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: Go! Go!
[She whips the horse many times, and it falls down dead]
Prissy: It's dead! It'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!

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Plot synopsis	Plot keywords
Amazon.com summary	FAQ	Parents Guide
User comments	Trivia	Goofs
Main details	IMDb quotes browser	Search quotes section
Browse titles with quotes by letter    A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other

*