I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken—and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.... I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can't. My dear, I don't give a damn.
Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949), U.S. novelist. Rhett Butler, in Gone with the Wind, vol. 2, pt. 5, ch. 63 (1936).
In the 1939 movie (screenplay by Sidney Howard), the final words of Rhett's farewell to Scarlett O'Hara are "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!"Mwith the emphasis on "give" to soften the impact of the "damn."