My dear, I don’t give a damn [Rhett Butler to Scarlett O’Hara].

Spoken by Rhett Butler to Scarlett O’Hara near the end of Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War–era novel *Gone with the Wind* (1936). After years of a turbulent marriage and Scarlett’s fixation on Ashley Wilkes, Rhett reaches a breaking point. Scarlett, newly shaken by loss and belatedly realizing her feelings for Rhett, tries to stop him from leaving. His curt dismissal—often remembered as the novel’s final sting—marks the collapse of their relationship and Rhett’s decision to walk away from Scarlett’s emotional self-absorption and manipulation.

The line crystallizes Rhett’s final withdrawal of emotional investment. It is less a casual profanity than a declaration of detachment: he refuses to continue being pulled into Scarlett’s late-arriving need for him after years of neglect and misrecognition. As a closing note, it punctures romantic expectation and underscores one of the novel’s recurring themes—self-deception and the cost of obsession. The bluntness also signals a modern, unsentimental realism amid the book’s sweeping historical melodrama, leaving Scarlett’s famous resolve (“Tomorrow is another day”) as a solitary act of will rather than a guaranteed reconciliation.

1) “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” (common wording; film version)
2) “My dear, I don’t give a damn.” (shortened form)
3) “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” (often misattributed as the novel’s exact phrasing)