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 FranklinIt 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 FranklinCowards always drag in the Bible to back theirselves up far more than proper people does.
Miles FranklinBefore I was ten I became critical of the anthropomorphic God as interpreted in the churches. I did not warm to One thus revealed as the semblance of a bullying and mean old man who must have all his own way, be praised all the time and for attributes which were deplorable in us.
Miles FranklinThere 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 FranklinWomen 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