If I said I was madly in love with you, I'd be lying and what's more, you'd know it.

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

Sometimes Frank sighed, thinking he had caught a tropic bird, all flame and jewel color, when a wren would have served him just as well. In fact, much better.

All she wanted was a breathing space in which to hurt.

She was as forthright and simple as the winds that blew over Tara and the yellow river that wound around it.

I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn't something left in life of charm and grace.

Scarlett's mind went back through the years to the still hot noon at Tara when grey smoke curled above a blue-clad body and Melanie stood at the top of the stairs with Charles' sabre in her hand. Scarlett remembered that she had thought at the time: 'How silly! Melly couldn't even heft that sword!' But now she knew that had the necessity arisen, Melanie would have charged down those stairs and killed the Yankee - or been killed herself.