Miles Franklin Quotes & Sayings

I never can see why they make such a fuss and get so frightened because wimmen does a thing or two now they usedn't to. Nothing short of a earthquake can make them not men an' wimmmen, an' that's the main thing. — Miles Franklin

Every now and again it would be considered wholesome for me to be more with people of my own age. Demotion to such company was a sapless exile. Their inanity was insufferable ... — Miles Franklin

I early became conscious that men breathe more audibly than women. Sit in a room in silence with men and women, and you can always hear the men breathing. — Miles Franklin

What I absorbed from autobiographies was not how to be great so much as the littleness of the great. — Miles Franklin

It is a wise provision that youth cannot see what it owes the previous generation. This is a chicken that comes back to roost in heavier years. — Miles Franklin

Knitting is not enough. — Miles Franklin

If the souls of lives were voiced in music, there are some that none but a great organ could express, others the clash of a full orchestra, a few to which nought but the refined and exquisite sadness of a violin could do justice. Many might be likened unto common pianos, jangling and out of tune, and some to the feeble piping of a penny whistle, and mine could be told with a couple of nails in a rusty tin-pot. — Miles Franklin

Only a very small percentage can regard conditions from any but a selfish point of view or conceive of any but their own shoe-pinch. — Miles Franklin

Bravely you jog along with the rope of class distinction drawing closer, close, tighter, tighter around you ... I see it and know it, but I cannot help you ... I am only an unnecessary, little, bush commoner, I am only a - woman. — Miles Franklin

life itself is anything beyond a heartless little chimera- it is as real in its weariness and bitter heartache — Miles Franklin

Ah, the bitter, hopeless heart-hunger of godlessness none but an atheist can understand! — Miles Franklin

When an emergency arose that necessiated Uncle Jay-Jay to shoe a horse himself, I always manipulated the bellows. He was always so exacting that I did it with great decorum, fearing his displeasure.

This case was different.

I worked the pole with such energy that it nearly blew the fire out of the pan, and sent ashes and sparks in a whirlwind around Harold.

"That the way to blow?" I asked demurely.
"Take things a little easier," He replied.

I took them so easily that the fire was on its last gasp and the shoe was almost cold when required.

"This won't do," Said Harry.

I recommenced with such force that he had to retreat.

"Steady! Steady!" He shouted.
"Sure, O'i can't plaze yez anyhows," I replied — Miles Franklin

I had been poor myself, and knew what awaited him in the world. He would find that they who fawned on him most would be first to turn their backs on him now. He would be rudely disillusioned regarding the fables of love and friendship, and would become cynical, bitter, and sceptical of there being any disinterested good in human nature. — Miles Franklin

Cowards always drag in the Bible to back theirselves up far more than proper people does ... — Miles Franklin

I don't believe there is a God", I said fiercely, "and if there is, He's not the merciful being He's always depicted, or He wouldn't be always torturing me for His own amusement. — Miles Franklin

Someone to tell it to is one of the fundamental needs of human beings. — Miles Franklin

I'm sure it's not any wish of mine that I'm born with inclinations for better things. If I could be born again, and had the designing of myself, I'd be born the lowest and coarsest-minded person imaginable, so that I could find plenty of companionship, or I'd be born an idiot, which would be better still. — Miles Franklin

No problem except old age ever vanquished my mother. — Miles Franklin

The way to wean any one from a desire is not by condemnation of it. — Miles Franklin

It ain't what things actually are, it's all they stand for. — Miles Franklin

We each have our fleeting hour. — Miles Franklin

Women can always think as much as they like, an' they could get up on a platform an' talk till they bust, as long as they didn't want the world to be made no better, an' they wouldn't be thought unwomanly. It's soon as a woman wants any practical good done that she is considered a unwomanly creature. — Miles Franklin

I am afflicted with the power of thought, which is a heavy curse. The less a person thinks and inquires regarding the why and the wherefore and the justice of things, when dragging along through life, the happier it is for him, and doubly, trebly so, for her. — Miles Franklin

Our greatest heart-treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary - some one who is part of our life as we are part of theirs, some one in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap for a day or two. — Miles Franklin

It's a sign of your own worth sometimes if you are hated by the right people. — Miles Franklin

Heed the spark or you may dread the fire ... — Miles Franklin

Civilization, stretching up to recognize that every child is a portion of State wealth, may presently make some movement to recognize maternity as a business or office needing time and strength, not as a mere passing detail thrown in among mountains of other slavery. — Miles Franklin

There is any amount of love and good in the world, but you must search for it. Being misunderstood is one of the trials we all must bear. I think that even the most common-minded person in the land has inner thoughts and feelings which no one can share with him, and the higher one's organization the more one must suffer in that respect. — Miles Franklin

This is not a romance - I have too often faced the music of life to the tune of hardship to waste time in snivelling and gushing over fancies and dreams [author's introduction] — Miles Franklin

Men always say there is no female Shakespeare.' 'Humph! You study the fellows who say that, and you'll see they are a long way from being Shakespeares themselves. Why shouldn't women have the same privilege? — Miles Franklin

There are only two kinds of parents. Those who think their offspring can do nothing wrong, and those who think they can do nothing right. — Miles Franklin

My mother is a good woman - a very good woman - and I am, I think, not quite all criminality, but we do not pull together. I am a piece of machinery which, not understanding, my mother winds up the wrong way, setting all the wheels of my composition going in creaking discord. — Miles Franklin

There is a law of retribution in all things, direct or indirect, visible or invisible. — Miles Franklin