“I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for awhile after the Second World War. I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody.They may be teaching that still.Another thing they taught was that no one was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, ‘You know – you never wrote a story with a villain in it.’I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war.”

“I was never educated to be an actor. I went to a regular college. It was a great thing for me because I feel that the main thing to get out of college is a thirst for knowledge. College should teach you how to be curious. Most people think that college is the end of education, but it isn't. The ceremony of giving you the diploma is called commencement. And that means you are fit to commence learning because you have learned how to learn.”

“On his deathbed, my grandpa told me three things to remember for after he died. First he said, "You can't own a cat. Ever." Second he told me, "Friendly boys make friendly friends." Finally he said, "You were adopted, just like your father before you, and his father before him." "So," I said, "you were adopted?" "Of course not!" he replied. "Your father's not my son, just like he's not your father." And to this day I am still confused. I have no idea why I can't own a cat.”

“Melanie is the gentlest of dreams and a part of my dreaming. And if the war had not come I would have lived out my life, happily buried at Twelve Oaks, contentedly watching life go by and never being a part of it. But when the war came, life as it really is thrust itself against me. The first time I went into action—it was at Bull Run, you remember—I saw my boyhood friends blown to bits and heard dying horses scream and learned the sickeningly horrible feeling of seeing men crumple up and spit blood when I shot them. But those weren't the worst things about the war, Scarlett. The worst thing about the war was the people I had to live with.I had sheltered myself from people all my life, I had carefully selected my few friends. But the war taught me I had created a world of my own with dream people in it. It taught me what people really are, but it didn't teach me how to live with them. And I'm afraid I'll never learn. Now, I know that in order to support my wife and child, I will have to make my way among a world of people with whom I have nothing in common.”

“My father taught me the most important thing about wisdom—that I was going to have to acquire it from other people. So without teaching me, he taught me how to learn from others.”

“Jem told me what Ragnor Fell said about my father,” Will said. “That for my father, there was only ever one woman he loved, and it was her for him, or nothing. You are that for me. I love you, and I will only ever love you until I die —”