“For I am fighting for the old days, the old ways which I love so much, but which, I fear, are now gone forever, no matter how the die may fall. For, win or lose, we lose just the same. - Ashley Wilkes, Gone with the Wind”

“I wondered if this was the way old crushes died, with a whimper, slowly, and then, just like that—gone.”

“They were having an argument as old and comfortable as an armchair, the kind of argument that no one ever really wins or loses but which can go on forever, if both parties are willing.”

“But, Ashley, what are you afraid of?''Oh, nameless things. Things which sound very silly when they areput into words. Mostly of having life suddenly become too real, ofbeing brought into personal, too personal, contact with some of thesimple facts of life. It isn't that I mind splitting logs here inthe mud, but I do mind what it stands for. I do mind, very much,the loss of the beauty of the old life I loved. Scarlett, beforethe war, life was beautiful. There was a glamor to it, aperfection and a completeness and a symmetry to it like Grecianart. Maybe it wasn't so to everyone. I know that now. But to me,living at Twelve Oaks, there was a real beauty to living. Ibelonged in that life. I was a part of it. And now it is gone andI am out of place in this new life, and I am afraid. Now, I knowthat in the old days it was a shadow show I watched. I avoidedeverything which was not shadowy, people and situations which weretoo real, too vital. I resented their intrusion.”

“song of elli (old age)"What is plucked will grow again,What is slain lives on,What is stolen will remainWhat is gone is gone...What is sea-born dies on land,Soft is trod upon.What is given burns the hand -What is gone is gone...Here is there, and high is low;All may be undone.What is true, no two men know -What is gone is gone...Who has choices need not choose.We must, who have none.We can love but what we lose -What is gone is gone.”

“Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make it so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, or drop a jar of applesauce.”