“But if you knew that, why on earth did you marry her?" Rosemary asked.
"Why?" Rhett's mouth twisted in a smile.
"Because she was so full of fire and so recklessly, stubbornly brave.Because she was such a child beneath all her pretenses.Because she was unlike any woman I had ever known. She fascinated
me,infuriated me, drove me mad. I loved her as consumingly as she loved him. From the day I first laid eyes on her. It was a kind of disease."
There was a weight of sorrow in his voice. He bowed his head into his two hands and laughed shakily. His voice was muffled and blurred by his fingers. "What a grotesque practical joke life is. Now Ashley Wilkes is a free man and would marry Scarlett on a moment's notice, and I want to be rid of her. Naturally that makes her determined to have me. She wants only what she cannot have."
Rhett raised his head. "I'm afraid," he said quietly, "afraid that it will all begin again. I know that she's heartless and completely selfish, that she's like a child who cries for a toy and then breaks it once she has it. But there are moments when she tilts her head at a certain angle, or she smiles that gleeful smile, or she suddenly looks lost-and I come close to forgetting what I know.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“You belong with me, Scarlett, haven't you figured that out? And the world is where we belong, all of it. We're not home-and-hearth people. We're the adventurers, the buccaneers, the blockade runners. Without challenge, we're only half alive. We can go anywhere, and as long as we're together, it will belong to us. But, my pet, we'll never belong to it. That's for other people, not for us.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“Should-haves solve nothing. It's the next thing to happen that needs thinking about.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“If only' repeated again and again in her head like a battering ram...'if only' could break your heart.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“But you know who you are when you're on your own out there in all that emptiness. There's no past, no holding on to the scraps that are all you've got left. Everything is that minute, or maybe tomorrow, not yesterday.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“One of the injustices of the world was that it was so easy to make the innocent and caring ones happy with so little.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“It's the centuries, Scarlett darling. All the life lived there, all the joy and all the sorrow, all the feasts and battles, they're in the air around and the land beneath you. It's time, years beyond our counting weighing without weight on the earth. You cannot see it or smell it or hear it or touch it, but you feel it brushing your skin and speaking without sound. Time. And mystery.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“Rhett glanced over his shoulder as if there had been a sound. His eyes met hers, and surprise stiffened his lithe body. For a long immeasurable moment the two of them looked at each other while the space between them widened. Then blandness smoothed Rhett's face as he touched two fingers to his hat brim in salute. Scarlett lifted her hand.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“And if things always stayed the same, Scarlett, what would be the reason for bothering to draw breath?”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“No woman can be truly beautiful who is not, also sometimes, truly ugly.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“Everyone knew that once a woman was 30, she might as well be dead.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“They have a saying, the French, that no woman, can be truly beautiful who is not also sometimes truly ugly.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“But listen well. In Tir na nOg, because there is no sorrow, there is no joy.
Do you hear the meaning of the seachain's song?”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“To anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them the land they live on is like their mother. It's the only thing that lasts, that's worth working for, for fighting for...”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“The faint of lemon verbena surrounded her, floating gently from Eleanor Butler's silk gown and silken hair. It was the fragrance that had always been part of Ellen O'Hara, the scent for Scarlett of comfort, of safety, of love, of life before the War”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“How could a man know the truth of his own soul?”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“Strong people didn’t like witnesses to their weak moments.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“Should-haves solve nothing. It's the next thing to happen that needs thinking about.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“What a waste! What a horrible, senseless waste. When happiness was so wonderful, how could anyone cling to a love that made them unhappy?”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“I’m going to make a world for myself by my rules, not anybody else’s. Don’t worry about me. I’m going to learn to be happy.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“I won’t think about it now, there’s nothing I can do about any of those things.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“What was the use of love if all it did was ruin things?”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“And she understood. She would have done the same. She understood, too, why she'd been wrong to offer Ballyhara as a substitute for land he'd farmed all his life. It made all his work meaningless, and the work of his sons, his brothers, his father, his father's father.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“What gives people whose whole life is a lie the right to judge me?”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“You don’t have to do anything, you only have to be what you are.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“If only” could break your heart.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“Should-haves solve nothing. It’s the next thing to happen that needs thinking about”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“Johnny Reb' laughed. 'What's it to a soldier the right and the wrong of it all? He's there for the fighting, that's what he likes. Doesn't matter who you're fighting, long as he gives you a good fight.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“When things are at their worst, Scarlett, the only thing to do is find something to laugh about. It keeps you sane… and it stops your teeth chattering from fear.”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“I won’t risk it again. I won’t destroy myself for you”
― Alexandra Ripley, quote from Scarlett
“The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.”
― Saki, quote from The Complete Saki
“I have pondered how much is provided for us by God's goodness. So many sources of enjoyment, and how thankful we should be. And even if afflictions come...we should know that they are of the hand of God.' She sighed, the semblance of a smile gracing the edges of her mouth. 'We should not expect to have all the blessings of life and none of its trials. it would make this world too delightful a dwelling place, and I fear we would never care to leave it.' Her eyes slipped closed. 'As it is...I have come to believe that it's only by taking some of those objects from us to which our hearts so closely cling that He endeavors...in His kindness, to draw us from this world to one of greater happiness.”
― Tamera Alexander, quote from A Lasting Impression
“The vampires took everything from me, but I'm looking into the eyes of one who has the power to give me back a reason to live, who can heal my gaping hole of sorrow.”
― J.A. London, quote from Darkness Before Dawn
“I want to be more productive, funnier, better, and I can do all that while I'm climbing. But I can't sustain it. I have to crash. And I know the crash is coming, I can taste it, but I can't stop it. Well actually I can, but I always think I have more time to stop it, until I don't. And then I fall-fast and hard-and disappoint just about everybody.”
― Ka Hancock, quote from Dancing on Broken Glass
“Our memories and the events of our lives are untidy things. We wish that we could file them away and shut the door, or we wish the opposite - that they would stay with us forever. You want to banish the remembrance of a tight hold on your ankle, a rope under a bed, the amber-colored medicine bottles of your father, the door your mother slams after a night of too much wine and jealousy. You want to keep close to you always that first sweet kiss, a maple leaf, that growing sense of yourself; you want to hold the sight of your dying father on that last boat trip, the calm you remember as your mother held you. Her voice.”
― Deb Caletti, quote from Stay
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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