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Who really said it

As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!

Not quite — the actual line is “I’ll never be hungry again” Margaret Mitchell 1900–1949 · Atlanta journalist & novelist · Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1937
Disputed In copyright

Scarlett O’Hara’s vow in Gone with the Wind (1939) ends “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!” — not “go hungry.” And the film did not invent it: the vow is Margaret Mitchell’s, written into Chapter XXV of her 1936 novel, where Scarlett says “I’m never going to be hungry again.” The screenplay, credited to Sidney Howard, tightened her sentence; the public then loosened it back into a phrase nobody wrote.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!” Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), screenplay credited to Sidney Howard, compressing Margaret Mitchell's vow from Chapter XXV of her 1936 novel. The popular "never go hungry again" is a misquote.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Turner Entertainment Co. (Warner Bros. Discovery) for the 1939 film; the Margaret Mitchell estate (Stephens Mitchell Trusts) and Macmillan for the 1936 novel). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Margaret Mitchell — Atlanta journalist & novelist · Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1937. Theme: "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What was actually said

Screen source
Gone with the Wind (1939), dir. Victor Fleming
Spoken by
Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) — a fictional character
Screenplay
Sidney Howard (sole credit; David O. Selznick, Ben Hecht and others rewrote uncredited)
Originates in
Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (Macmillan, 30 June 1936), ch. XXV

As God is my witness, as God is my witness they’re not goin’ to lick me. I’m goin’ to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again! The vow at Tara

That is the 1939 film, verbatim. Mitchell’s 1936 original, which closes Chapter XXV, runs: “Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: ‘As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren’t going to lick me. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill—as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again.’” Both say be hungry. Neither says go hungry.

Full text of Mitchell's 1936 novel
Read the original vow in Chapter XXV
Gone with the Wind (film) — dialogue transcription on Wikiquote

How we verified this

  • 1936 — Margaret Mitchell publishes Gone with the Wind (Macmillan, 30 June). Chapter XXV ends with Scarlett’s vow: “as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again.” Confirmed against the complete text ↗. The novel wins the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction ↗.
  • 1939 — The film adaptation premieres in Atlanta on 15 December, compressing Mitchell’s sentence to “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!” Wikiquote’s transcription ↗ records the full speech. Sidney Howard ↗, who died that August, takes sole screenplay credit and becomes the first posthumous Oscar winner.
  • 2005 — The American Film Institute places the line at #59 on its 100 Movie Quotes list ↗, printing it as “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again” — a second independent record of the wording.
  • Since — The idiomatic “never go hungry again” spreads through repetition. It matches no line in either the novel or the film; the substitution appears to be ordinary memory smoothing an unidiomatic phrase, not a documented mishearing.
In copyright

Both works are firmly in copyright in the United States. The novel was published in 1936 and its copyright renewed in 1964; because works published in 1931 or later can remain protected for up to 95 years from publication, it remains under US copyright ↗ and is not public domain in the US — it is public domain in Australia and other life-plus-50 countries only, which is why a complete text is lawfully hosted at Project Gutenberg Australia. The 1939 film is likewise in copyright; screen writing is work-for-hire, so the rights sit with the studio — Turner Entertainment ↗, which acquired the MGM library in 1986 — and not with Sidney Howard’s heirs.

Fact-check

Two errors, not one

The popular version gets the words wrong and gives the credit to the wrong work. Both are worth separating, because only one of them is the public’s fault.

“I’ll never go hungry again” Misquotation

No such line exists. The film transcript ↗ reads “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”, and the American Film Institute quotes it the same way in ranking it #59 of the top 100 movie quotes ↗. Mitchell’s novel likewise says “be hungry.” The word “go” appears in no version of the vow.

The 1939 film Borrowed, not coined

The vow is credited to the movie almost universally, but it is Margaret Mitchell’s. Chapter XXV of the 1936 novel ↗ reads: “As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren’t going to lick me… I’m never going to be hungry again.” The screenplay contracted her sentence; it did not originate the line.

Scarlett O’Hara / Vivien Leigh Not the author

Scarlett is a fictional character and Vivien Leigh is the actress who performed the line — neither wrote it. Quotation sites routinely file the vow under “Scarlett O’Hara quotes,” which credits a person who does not exist.

The honest line: Margaret Mitchell wrote the vow in her 1936 novel ↗; the 1939 screenplay, credited to Sidney Howard ↗, compressed it to “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!” — and the public added the “go.”

Context

Why the drift happened

The scene is the end of the film’s first half: Scarlett, starving in the ruined fields at Tara, retches, rises against a blood-red sky and swears an oath. It is the hinge of the story — the moment the spoiled belle becomes the survivor who will do anything. Curtain, intermission, and the line goes out into the culture.

“Never go hungry” is the more idiomatic English phrase, and idiom is a strong current. Memory quietly swaps the odd, flat construction Mitchell actually wrote — be hungry, a state, a condition, something you are — for the smoother thing we’d say ourselves. But the swap costs the line its meaning. To “go hungry” is to miss meals. To be hungry is what Scarlett has become, and what she is vowing to stop being.

Mitchell wrote a state of being. The public keeps rewriting it as a missed meal.

The other half of the error: what the film actually contributed

Mitchell, Chapter XXV (1936): “As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren’t going to lick me. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill—as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again.”

The film (1939): “As God is my witness, as God is my witness they’re not goin’ to lick me. I’m goin’ to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”

The screen changes are real but small: “the Yankees” becomes “they,” “I’m never going to be” contracts to “I’ll never be,” “steal or kill” widens to “lie, steal, cheat or kill,” and “folks” loses its s. This is the same pattern as the film’s most famous line: Mitchell wrote “My dear, I don’t give a damn” and the screen added “Frankly.” The movie sharpened Mitchell; it did not write her.

Who did the sharpening cannot be pinned to one hand. Sidney Howard holds the sole screenplay credit and won a posthumous Academy Award for it, but producer David O. Selznick rewrote substantially and Ben Hecht, Jo Swerling, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Barbara Keon and John Van Druten all worked the script uncredited.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Resilience Purpose

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Gone with the Wind (film) — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Transcription of the film’s dialogue, including Scarlett’s full vow ending “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”
Gone with the Wind — full text of the 1936 novelgutenberg.net.au

Complete novel, public domain in Australia. Chapter XXV carries the original vow — the proof the line predates the film.
AFI's 100 Years…100 Movie Quotesen.wikipedia.org

The American Film Institute ranks the line #59, quoting it as “be hungry” — independent corroboration of the wording.
Gone with the Wind — copyright statusonlinebooks.library.upenn.edu

Catalog record confirming the novel remains under US copyright while being public domain in countries outside the US and Europe.
Sidney Howarden.wikipedia.org

The credited screenwriter (1891–1939), the first posthumous Oscar winner, who adapted Mitchell’s novel for the screen.
Gone with the Wind (novel)en.wikipedia.org

Publication history: Macmillan, 30 June 1936; Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1937.

The novelist, not the screen

Who actually wrote the vow

Margaret Mitchell

1900–1949 · Atlanta journalist & novelist · Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1937

Margaret Mitchell was an Atlanta-born journalist who wrote for the Atlanta Journal’s Sunday Magazine from 1922 until an ankle injury ended her newspaper career. She spent roughly a decade writing her only published novel, Gone with the Wind (Macmillan, 30 June 1936), which won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and has sold more than 30 million copies. Scarlett’s hunger vow — the line the 1939 film made famous — was hers first, on the page, three years before Vivien Leigh spoke a compressed version of it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary sources

Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (New York: Macmillan, 1936), chap. XXV. Film: Gone with the Wind, directed by Victor Fleming, screenplay by Sidney Howard, from Mitchell’s novel (Selznick International Pictures / MGM, 1939).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/as-god-is-my-witness-ill-never-go-hungry-again

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