Men and women, they were beautiful and wild, all a little violent under their pleasant ways and only a little tamed.

She is the only dream I ever had that lived and breathed and did not die in the face of reality." (Ashley said about Melanie)

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is.

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.

The Old Guard dies but it never surrenders.

men are so conceited they’ll believe anything that flatters them

She hasn't your strength. She's never had any strength. She's never had anything but heart.