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

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.

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)

She was darkness and he was darkness and there had never been anything before this time, only darkness and his lips upon her. She tried to speak and his mouth was over hers again. Suddenly she had a wild thrill such as she had never known; joy, fear, madness, excitement, surrender to arms that were too strong, lips too bruising, fate that moved too fast.

The world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business.

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

Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was.