Quotes from Alexandra Ripley

Charlestonians had a particularly vicious and cunning game, developed after the War. They treated outsiders with so much graciousness and consideration that their politeness became a weapon. 'Visitors end up feeling as if they're wearing shoes for the first time in their lives. It's said that only the strongest ever recover from the experience. The Chinese never developed a torture to match it, although they're a very subtle people.

She was by herself whether she wanted to be or not, and no amount of brandy would make it any different.

Books have become products, like cereal or perfume or deodorant.

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.

Should-haves solve nothing. It's the next thing to happen that needs thinking about.

If only' repeated again and again in her head like a battering ram...'if only' could break your heart.

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.

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.

One of the injustices of the world was that it was so easy to make the innocent and caring ones happy with so little.

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.

And if things always stayed the same, Scarlett, what would be the reason for bothering to draw breath?

No woman can be truly beautiful who is not, also sometimes, truly ugly.

Everyone knew that once a woman was 30, she might as well be dead.

Something happens to people when they're masked. They become too free, uncivilized. They may do anything.

They have a saying, the French, that no woman, can be truly beautiful who is not also sometimes truly ugly.

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?

And the world is where we belong, all of it.

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...

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

How could a man know the truth of his own soul?

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.

Strong people didn't like witnesses to their weak moments.

What was the use of love if all it did was ruin things?

What a waste! What a horrible, senseless waste. When happiness was so wonderful, how could anyone cling to a love that made them unhappy?