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

Categorized in : Thinking Wind Mother

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

Miles Franklin

smile money relationship

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

Miles Franklin

self-reliance sometimes people

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

change long thinking

Girls! Girls! Those of you who have hearts, and therefore a wish for happiness, homes and husbands by and by, never develop a reputation for being clever.

Miles Franklin

husband girl clever

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

piano sadness couple

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

female men long

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

treasure heart two

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

office civilization children

there is a law of retribution in all things, direct or indirect, visible or invisible.

Miles Franklin

indirect invisible law

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

parent two thinking

It is the highest form of culture and craftmanship in art to use local materials. That way you stand a chance of adding to culture. The other way you are in danger of merely imitating it.

Miles Franklin

use culture art

Heed the spark or you may dread the fire.

Miles Franklin

sparks fire may

When all is said and done, friendship is the only trustworthy fabric of the affections. So-called LOVE is a delirious inhuman state of mind: when hot it substitutes indulgence for fair play; when cold it is cruel, but friendship is warmth in cold, firm ground in a bog.

Miles Franklin

real love-is friendship

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

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

women class art

... no problem except old age ever vanquished my mother.

Miles Franklin

problem age mother

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

design would-be wish

To grow up in intimate association with nature - animal and vegetable - is an irreplaceable form of wealth and culture.

Miles Franklin

growing-up nature animal

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

generations wise years

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

breathing silence men