Top 40 Alexandra Ripley Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “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

2. “You don’t have to do anything, you only have to be what you are.”

— Alexandra Ripley

4. “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

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

— Alexandra Ripley

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

— Alexandra Ripley

7. “Strong people didn’t like witnesses to their weak moments.”

— Alexandra Ripley

8. “Should-haves solve nothing. It’s the next thing to happen that needs thinking about.”

— Alexandra Ripley

9. “What gives people whose whole life is a lie the right to judge me?”

— Alexandra Ripley

10. “I won’t think about it now, there’s nothing I can do about any of those things.”

— Alexandra Ripley

11. “Books have become products, like cereal or perfume or deodorant.”

— Alexandra Ripley

12. “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

13. “Something happens to people when they’re masked. They become too free, uncivilized. They may do anything.”

— Alexandra Ripley

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

— Alexandra Ripley

15. “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

16. “Why don’t you put on an animal’s pelt and drag me to your house by my hair?”

— Alexandra Ripley

17. “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.”

— Alexandra Ripley

18. “Scarlett O’Hara did the most courageous thing she had ever been called on to do. She faced up to failure.”

— Alexandra Ripley

19. “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

20. “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

21. “I won’t risk it again. I won’t destroy myself for you.”

— Alexandra Ripley

22. “What was the use of love if all it did was ruin things?”

— Alexandra Ripley

23. “If only’ repeated again and again in her head like a battering ram... ‘if only’ could break your heart.”

— Alexandra Ripley

24. “How could a man know the truth of his own soul?”

— Alexandra Ripley

25. “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

26. “She’d done harder things in her life, she could do this. She had to.”

— Alexandra Ripley

27. “I guess I let things get me down as far as a person can go, she thought with disgust, and her own scorn warmed her. I won’t let it happen again, ever, no matter what comes. Once you get down all the way, the road can only go up.”

— Alexandra Ripley

28. “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.”

— Alexandra Ripley

29. “Do you not see that love feeds without gluttony on itself, that love is an ever-brimming cup, from which drinking fills again and still more.”

— Alexandra Ripley

30. “It eased the pain some when she thought about the way he’d treated her and hatred burned away the hurt.”

— Alexandra Ripley

31. “During that year Scarlett had been so busy, had experienced such changes in her life, that she’d been able to block out the pain he had caused her. Now it tore her heart, and with the pain was a deep fear of Rhett’s unpredictable power. She transformed them into rage. Rage was strengthening.”

— Alexandra Ripley

32. “Every baby’s the only in my observation of mothers.”

— Alexandra Ripley

33. “Put me down and I’ll show you,” said Scarlett. Rhett lowered her to her feet. His big hands closed on her shoulders, and he pulled her to him impatiently, then kissed her, briefly, firmly, and let her go. “I’d hate to be shot without getting what I came for,” he said. She could hear the laughter in his voice. “Now, Scarlett, get us out of here.”

— Alexandra Ripley

34. “Rhett was watching the race through field glasses. Even ten feet away she could smell the whiskey on him. He was rocking on his feet. Drunk? Not Rhett. He could always hold his liquor. Had Bart’s disaster upset him that much?”

— Alexandra Ripley

35. “Rhett trapped her wrists in a circle of his fingers. “I love you, you abusive wench.” His expression hardened. “And I’ll kill that bastard Fenton if he tries to take you from me.”

— Alexandra Ripley

36. “Happy is the best way to be because then you can let other people be happy, too. Their own way.”

— Alexandra Ripley

37. “That Billy was her only child was testimony to death of the romance.”

— Alexandra Ripley

38. “If only” could break your heart.”

— Alexandra Ripley

39. “I don’t understand,” she admitted at last. “You were trying to kill each other fifteen years ago, and you’re friends now. Don’t you even argue about the North and the South and who was right?” “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

40. “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

41. “Hello, Rhett,” she said. His head snapped, and she saw his dark eyes. They held nothing for her, nothing but anger. “Why hello, Countess.” His eyes raked her from her kidskin boots to her egret-plumed hat. “You are certainly looking – expensive.” He turned abruptly towards John Morland. “You should have warned me, Bart, so I could stay in the bar. Let me by.” And he sent Morland staggering as he pushed out of the box on the side away from Scarlett.”

— Alexandra Ripley

42. “Scarlett laughed aloud without knowing it. It was a child’s laughter, free and unconsidered, expressing pure joyful surprise. “Oh, look!” she said. “Oh, look!” She was so enraptured that she was unaware of Rhett’s eyes watching her, instead of the horses.”

— Alexandra Ripley

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

— Alexandra Ripley