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 MitchellShe is the only dream I ever had that lived and breathed and did not die in the face of reality." (Ashley said about Melanie)
Margaret MitchellIt doesnโt matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful. For a woman, love comes after marriage.โ โOh, Pa, thatโs such an Old Country notion!โ โAnd a good notion it is! All this American business of running around marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel?
Margaret MitchellOnce, when she was six years old, she had fallen from a tree, flat on her stomach. She could still recall that sickening interval before breath came back into her body. Now, as she looked at him, she felt the same way she had felt then, breathless, stunned, nauseated.
Margaret Mitchell