“As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.”

Surface meaning

Scarlett O’Hara says the line as a vow that she will never again suffer from hunger or allow her family to face starvation. She calls on God as witness, turning a private promise into an oath that demands to be kept.

Cinematic context

In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett has returned to Tara after the Civil War and finds the plantation devastated. Her mother is dead, her father is mentally broken, her sisters are ill, and the once-prosperous land has been stripped of its food and wealth. After finding something to eat in the ruined fields, she raises her voice toward the sky and makes hunger the enemy she will spend the rest of her life defeating.

Deeper meaning

The vow marks the point at which Scarlett stops waiting for the old Southern world to restore itself. Tara is no longer a secure home supported by inherited privilege. It is damaged ground, and survival now depends on her own will, even when that will becomes hard, selfish, or ruthless.

Vivien Leigh gives the promise a physical force that goes beyond fear. Scarlett is not only promising to eat well. She is rejecting helplessness, humiliation, and dependence. The words contain grief for what has been lost, but they also convert that grief into ambition. Her determination will protect Tara, yet it will also shape the moral compromises that follow.

Pop-culture legacy

The line ranks 59th on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest movie quotes. It is remembered as Scarlett’s clearest declaration of survival, often used when a character or speaker turns deprivation into motivation. Its afterlife comes from the contrast between the grand religious language and the immediate physical need behind it: the promise sounds biblical, but it begins with an empty stomach.