Miles Franklin Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

Knitting is not enough.

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]

A woman writer, except in rare instances, has no protection such as enjoyed by men who use their wives and mistresses as a marline to save themselves from the wear and tear of interruption.

When the corpses of [Sir John] Franklin's officers and crew were later discovered, miles from their ships, the men were found to have left behind their guns but to have lugged such essentials as monogrammed silver cutlery, a backgammon board, a cigar case, a clothes brush, a tin of button polish, and a copy of "The Vicar of Wakefield." These men may have been incompetent bunglers, but, by God, they were gentlemen.

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

A six mile meteorite cannot compare with a culinary cataclysm of this magnitude.

What does Africa — what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior white on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast, when discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the Mississippi, or a Northwest Passage around this continent, that we would find? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park,the Lewis and Clark and Frobisher,of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes — with shiploads of preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Were preserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition,with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact that there are continents and seas in the moral world to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone.

Yes, I once was foolish enough to try and be polite, but I’ve given it up. My style of talk is quite good enough for my company. What on earth does it matter whether I’m vulgar or not. I can feed calves and milk and grind out my days here just as well vulgar as unvulgar,” I answered savagely.

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.

It came home to me as a great blow that it was only men who could take the world by its ears and conquer their fate, while women, metaphorically speaking, were forced to sit with tied hands and patiently suffer as the waves of fate tossed them hither and thither, battering and bruising without mercy. Familiarity made me used to this yoke; I recovered from the disappointment of being a girl, and was reconciled to that part of my fate. In fact, I found that being a girl was quite pleasant, until a hideous truth dawned upon me--I was ugly! ... In conjunction with this brand of hell I developed a reputation of cleverness. Worse and worse! Girls! girls! Those of you who have hearts, and therefore a wish for happiness, homes, and husbands by and by, never develop a reputation of being clever. It will put you out of the matrimonial running as effectually as though it had been circulated that you had leprosy. So, if you feel that you are afflicted with more than ordinary intelligence, and especially if you are plain with it, hide your brains, cramp your mind, study to appear unintellectual--it is your only chance. Provided a woman is beautiful, allowance will be made for all her shortcomings. She can be unchaste, vapid, untruthful, flippant, heartless, and even clever; so long as she is fair to see, men will stand by her, and as men in this world are "the dog on top," they are the power to truckle to. A plain woman will have nothing forgiven her.

Novelist Saul Bellow remembers the exhilarating experience of listening to Roosevelt speak. “I can recall walking eastward on the Chicago Midway on a summer evening. The light held after nine o’clock, and the ground was covered with clover, more than a mile of green between Cottage Grove and Stony Island. The blight hadn’t yet carried off the elms, and under them drivers had pulled over, parking bumper to bumper, and turned on their radios to hear Roosevelt. They had rolled down the windows and opened the car doors. Everywhere the same voice, its odd Eastern accent, which in anyone else would have irritated Midwesterners. You could follow without missing a single word as you strolled by. You felt joined to these unknown drivers, men and women smoking their cigarettes in silence, not so much considering the President’s words as affirming the rightness of his tone and taking assurance from it.

She was ushered into a passage where the only light came from the tallow taper in the rabbi's hand. The house smelled of chicken soup. In the thousand miles she and Rosa and the children had traveled from Siberia, passed along like parcels from settlement to Jewish settlement, sometimes in houses, often in huts, that smell had been the one constant, as if they had followed its trail by sniffing, like dogs. However poor their hosts, a hen had been killed in their honor because hospitality demanded it.

Biff rode in the Hardys’ car with Frank and Joe while Chet chauffeured the girls in his jalopy. Five miles later they stopped at the Hamburger Haven, piled out of the cars, and occupied counter stools. After the girls had ordered, Chet boomed, “Three burgers for me, a double order of French fries, and a thick chocolate malted.

Vivira is less than forty miles north of Mazatlan,” Frank said, examining a road map. “Just off the main road.” A little over an hour passed before the Hardys and Chet arrived in Vivira. It was a quiet little village with many trees, and a fountain in the center of a small plaza.

The boys reached the flight line just as Randy was completing a preflight check of the aircraft. In a few minutes they were strapped in their seats and taxiing toward the active runway. The pilot remarked, “Because of the direction of the wind, that runway is the only one I can use to head the plane into the wind.” He tuned his radio to the proper frequency and contacted Bayport tower. An immediate reply crackled from the plane’s receiver. “Ace Service Flight Two-Six is cleared to runway One-Niner. Wind’s from the southeast at fifteen knots. Altimeter setting, Two-Niner-Eight-Six.” Randy paused to check his instruments, controls, and engine magnetos. The tower then cleared him for immediate take-off. Turning into the runway, he eased the throttle ahead. Soon he and his passengers were airborne and taking a course to the northwest. The boys gazed down at the earth below. The terrain became more hilly with each passing mile. The expanses of wooded areas looked like rumpled deep-green carpet. Here and there, lakes and small streams reflected the sun in bright

Frank and Joe, students at Bayport High, were combining business with pleasure this Saturday morning by doing the errand for their father. Even though one boy was dark and the other fair, there was a marked resemblance between the two brothers. Eighteen-year-old Frank was tall and dark. Joe, a year younger, was blond with blue eyes. They were the only children of Fenton and Laura Hardy. The family lived in Bayport, a small but thriving city of fifty thousand inhabitants, located on Barmet Bay, three miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean.

Chet Morton, who was a school chum of the Hardy boys, lived on a farm about a mile out of Bayport. The pride of Chet’s life was a bright yellow jalopy which he had named Queen. He worked on it daily to “soup up” the engine. Frank and Joe retraced their trip for a few miles, then turned onto a country road which led to the main highway on which the Morton farm was situated.

Much more interesting was what lay further to the south. The next right off the two-lane after Mule Crossing came three miles later. It was a forest service track into a nature preserve labeled Roosevelt National something. It was right at the bottom of the map. Right on the state line. The third word would be on the first Colorado sheet. Forest, presumably. Teddy Roosevelt, Reacher supposed, not Franklin. The great naturalist, except for when he was shooting things like tigers and elephants. People were complicated.

Joe held the speedometer needle at the maximum speed allowed, and the countryside flashed by. When they hit the turnpike, Frank spelled his brother at the wheeL Now, with greater speed, the miles melted past. “She purrs like a kitten,” Frank said. “A great car, Joe.” “Good thing we had the motor tuned up,” Frank remarked as the wind whipped through his hair. After a quick stop for lunch, Joe drove away from the roadside restaurant. “Want to listen to the news?” “Okay. What country’s having a war today?” “Maybe someone has landed on the moon,” Frank said as he clicked on the high-powered transistor.

A few minutes later the boys were in the jalopy and driving down a country road bordered by woods. A half mile farther, Chet stopped and turned off the Queen’s engine. The sound of rushing water could be heard. “This is the spot,” Chet announced, and they started off through the woods. The boys soon came to a clear running stream and spotted Mr. Morton seated contentedly on the bank. He was leaning against a tree, holding his rod lightly between his knees and steadying it with his hands. Just as the boys called a greeting to him, the line began to jerk and almost immediately the rod bent till the tip was close to the water. Mr. Morton leaped to his feet and shouted, “Just a minute, fellows! I’ve hooked a lulu!

Frank drove five miles north of town to an elevated spot overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and directly below, Barmet Bay. From the road, they could see Bayport hugging the coast with its many docks stretching like dark fingers into the bay.

Joe checked the gas and oil in their car while Frank loaded the baggage into the trunk. “All set.” “Okay.” Joe took the wheel and zigzagged through the Bayport streets until they came to the highway which led directly west. Early-morning traffic was light, consisting mainly of large trucks heading east toward the radar construction. The road, level at first, rose in a long curve toward the top of a hill, three miles out of town.

A brief examination of the gray bluff revealed a narrow cleft leading to the top of the precipice. Joe, ascending first, found himself on another path which seemed to rim the island from the top of the bluffs. “Here’s the trail the hermit used to keep us in sight yesterday,” he told the others. After scrambling up, Frank, Tony, and Jerry paused for a look about. Below them sparkled the bright ocean, extending to the mainland a few miles away. Behind lay a little plateau, overgrown with small pines and scrub oaks. In the center of the flat area rose a steep, rocky hill which gave the island its humping silhouette. “A hut would be easy to camouflage among those trees,” Frank remarked. “We’ll have to spread out and comb every foot of the woods.” Though the youths worked carefully around the plateau, they found no sign of any shelter. On the island’s seaward side, where the growth was sparse, the boys checked the sides of the steep hill for caves. They saw none.

The Napoli was a rangy, powerful craft with graceful lines and was the pride of Tony’s life. The boat moved slowly out into the waters of Barmet Bay and then gathered speed as it headed toward the ocean. “Rough water,” Frank remarked as breaking swells hit the hull. Salt spray dashed over the bow of the Napoli as it plunged on through the white-caps. Bayport soon became a speck nestled at the curve of the horseshoe-shaped body of water. Reaching the ocean, Tony turned north. The boys could see the white line of the shore road rising and falling along the coast. Soon they passed the Kane farm. Two miles farther on they came within sight of the cliff upon which the Pollitt house stood. It looked stark and forbidding above the rocks, its roof and chimneys silhouetted against the sky.

The two cars drove to the Morton farm, about a mile outside Bayport. Several other cars were parked there already. The Hardys’ friends marched the brothers into the house.

Arriving in Manati, the boys inquired the way to the Delgado plantation and were told it was located a mile north of town. When they reached it, Senor Delgado greeted them cordially on the steps of his long, low white bungalow. “Welcome, amigos! I understand you have come to learn about pineapples.” “Yes, Senor Delgado,” Frank said as he and Joe shook hands with the man. “Cabezona pineapples.” The plantation owner drove the boys around, pointing out the fields of spiked plants in various stages of growth. Men were busy in one section cutting off huge pineapples with long, sharp knives. Then, after showing Frank and Joe the huge cannery, he took them into his office. A white-jacketed Puerto Rican boy brought glasses and a pitcher of iced pineapple juice on a tray.

The jet roared on. After a while Frank gestured out the window. “We’re having beautiful flying weather, Joe. Just look at Cape Cutlass down there.” Below them, the cape spread out in bright sunlight. Not a cloud blocked their view. They could see every turn and twist of the coast, every cove and inlet, for miles in either direction. The landscape zipped past beneath the wing tips as the plane streaked north. Joe

The Hardys drove off, heading first for the Morton farm. Chet and Iola were waiting for them, with several baskets of food which included lobsters and a sack of clams. Their next stop was at the Shaw house to pick up Callie, then they drove directly to the waterfront. “Hi!” cried Tony, giving his friends an expansive grin. The Napoli was chugging quietly at her berth. After the food and digging tools had been transferred to the craft and the Hardys had brought their diving gear from the Sleuth, everyone stepped aboard and Tony shoved off. When they reached the end of the bay and turned up the coast, the young people watched for Pirates’ Hill. Minutes later they saw it in the distance. The hill was a desolate hump of sand-covered stone jutting into the sea. There was not a house in sight, except one small cottage about half a mile beyond the crown of the hill.

Three miles farther on they reached a side road which they figured would take them near the shack. Presently the road ended and Frank braked the convertible to a stop. Ahead was nothing but sand. The boys got out and looked around. “There’s the shack!” Frank pointed to their right as he put the car keys in his pocket. The ramshackle old building, badly weathered and sagging, stood between two dunes. They trudged toward it through the wet sand, a fine spray from the windswept sea stinging their faces. “What a dismal place!” Frank exclaimed

A few minutes later the fishing boat pulled away from the wharf and chugged smoothly down the bay. Chet, as leader of the expedition, bustled about importantly. He assigned places to everyone and explained the technique of tuna fishing, about which he had just read. It was a calm, warm day and the sea was smooth, with only a slight swell. A few miles beyond the mouth of the bay, the captain announced they had reached tuna water. He distributed the rods and herring he had brought along as bait and scattered fresh chum over the side to attract the fish. Mr. McClintock took up his position in a fishing chair, and Chet showed him the proper way to hold the heavy rod. He threw the bait overboard and watched it sink until the end of the leader disappeared from sight. Next, he coiled about fifteen feet of the thirty-nine-thread line on the stern and held it. “Tuna grow pretty big, don’t they?” asked Mr. McClintock, becoming a little nervous. “It won’t pull me overboard, will it?” “Could be.” Captain Harkness grinned. “But don’t worry, we’ll rescue you!

Mile after mile raced beneath the wheels of the convertible as it steadily neared the old battlefield named for the stream Rocky Run. Late in the afternoon they drove through the little town of Centerville. The main street, paved with red brick, was flanked by two rows of huge live oak trees. Behind them, quaint old houses stood in the shade of spreading magnolias. Farther on, the street led to a square, along which sprawled a handful of stores, a small stately courthouse, and a tall-pillared hotel. A solitary, bewhiskered man sat on the porch of the hostelry, smoking a pipe and rocking. “Looks mighty sleepy around here,” Chet remarked. “I think I’m going to fit right in with this life!” “A peaceful old town,” the general replied, smiling. “My place is a quarter mile down the road.

Remembering another farmhouse a mile or so in the direction of Black Horse Pike, Frank set off. He was faint from hunger and the drug, but he kept on. As he plodded up the lane, the farmer’s wife saw him coming and opened the door. She surveyed the disheveled boy skeptically. “May I use your telephone?” he asked. “I’m Frank Hardy, and I want to call Bayport.” On hearing the name Hardy, the woman readily consented. Frank put his call through. As he waited, he noticed that the hands on a mantel clock stood at eight twenty-five.

Our greatest heart-treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary - someone who is part of our life as we are part of theirs, someone in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap . .

Epigraph: ‘No Australian who has wrestled with the ardours and subtleties of resolving this continent in terms of literature will discount Henry Lawson.’ Miles Franklin, 1942.

In a wide young country of boundless resources, why is this thing? This question worried me. Our legislators are unable or unwilling to cope with it. They trouble not to be patriots and statesmen. Australia can bring forth writers, orators, financiers, singers, musicians, actors, and athletes which are second to none of any nation under the sun. Why can she not bear sons, men of soul, mind, truth, godliness, and patriotism sufficient to rise and cast off the grim shackles which widen round us day by day?

I am proud that I am an Australian, a daughter of the Southern Cross, a child of the mighty bush. I am thankful I am a peasant, a part of the bone and muscle of my nation, and earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, as man was meant to do. I rejoice I was not born a parasite, one of the blood-suckers who loll on velvet and satin, crushed from the proceeds of human sweat and blood and souls. Ah, my sunburnt brothers!—sons of toil and of Australia! I love and respect you well, for you are brave and good and true. I have seen not only those of you with youth and hope strong in your veins, but those with pathetic streaks of grey in your hair, large families to support, and with half a century sitting upon your work-laden shoulders. I have seen you struggle uncomplainingly against flood, fire, disease in stock, pests, drought, trade depression, and sickness, and yet have time to extend your hands and hearts in true sympathy to a brother in misfortune, and spirits to laugh and joke and be cheerful. And for my sisters a great love and pity fills my heart. Daughters of toil, who scrub and wash and mend and cook, who are dressmakers, paperhangers, milkmaids, gardeners, and candle-makers all in one, and yet have time to be cheerful and tasty in your homes, and make the best of the few oases to be found along the narrow dusty track of your existence. Would that I were more worthy to be one of you—more a typical Australian peasant—cheerful, honest, brave! I love you, I love you. Bravely you jog along with the rope of class distinction drawing closer, closer, tighter, tighter around you: a few more generations and you will be as enslaved as were ever the moujiks of Russia. I see it and know it, but I cannot help you. My ineffective life will be trod out in the same round of toil—I am only one of yourselves, I am only an unnecessary, little, bush commoner, I am only a—woman!

Professor Craig Franklin of the University of Queensland mounted a crocodile research partnership with Steve. The idea was to fasten transmitters and data loggers on crocs to record their activity in their natural environment. But in order to place the transmitters, you had to catch the crocs first, and that’s where Steve’s expertise came in. Steve never felt more content than when he was with his family in the bush. “There’s nothing more valuable than human life, and this research will help protect both crocs and people,” he told us. The bush was where Steve felt most at home. It was where he was at his best. On that one trip, he caught thirty-three crocs in fourteen days. He wanted to do more. “I’d really like to have the capability of doing research on the ocean as well as in the rivers,” he told me. “I could do so much more for crocodiles and sharks if I had a purpose-built research vessel.” I could see where he was heading. I was not a big fan of boats. “I’m going to contact a company in Western Australia, in Perth,” he said. “I’m going to work on a custom-built research vessel.” As the wheels turned in his mind, he became more and more excited. “The sky’s the limit, mate,” he said. “We could help tiger sharks and learn why crocs go out to sea. There is no reason why we couldn’t help whales, too.” “Tell me how we can help whales,” I said, expecting to hear about a research project that he and Craig had in mind. “It will be great,” he said. “We’ll build a boat with an icebreaking hull. We’ll weld a can opener to the front, and join Sea Shepherd in Antarctica to stop those whaling boats in their tracks.” When we got back from our first trip to Cape York Peninsula with Craig Franklin, Steve immediately began drawing up plans for his boat. He wanted to make it as comfortable as possible. As he envisioned it, the boat would be somewhere between a hard-core scientific research vessel and a luxury cruiser. He designed three berths, a plasma screen television for the kids, and air-conditioned comfort below deck. He placed a big marlin board off the back, for Jet Skis, shark cages, or hauling out huge crocs. One feature that he was really adamant about was a helicopter pad. He designed the craft so that the helicopter could land on the top. Steve’s design plans went back and forth to Perth for months. “I want this boat’s primary function to be crocodile research and rescue work,” Steve said. “So I’m going to name her Croc One.” “Why don’t we call it For Sale instead?” I suggested. I’m not sure Steve saw the humor in that. Croc One was his baby. But for some reason, I felt tremendous trepidation about this boat. I attributed my feelings of concern to Bindi and Robert. Anytime you have kids on a boat, the rules change--no playing hide-and-seek, no walking on deck without a life jacket on. It made me uncomfortable to think about being two hundred miles out at sea with two young kids. We had had so many wild adventures together as a family that, ultimately, I had to trust Steve. But my support for Croc One was always, deep down, halfhearted at best. I couldn’t shake my feeling of foreboding about it.

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

Save your drama for a llama because Hollywood is miles and miles away!

Three hundred miles away, in Philadelphia, forty-nine-year-old Benjamin Franklin sits naked in his bedroom. He is reading a book with the windows wide open while enjoying the rejuvenation of his daily “air bath.

Work on wanting what you have. Look around you and try to appreciate your possessions and possibilities as if you were Ben Franklin popped into the twenty-first century. Central heating, air-conditioning, indoor plumbing, a stove and refrigerator. A vehicle that will take you six hundred miles in a day, in comfort, on paved roads. An orchestra you can carry in your pocket. If Ben Franklin doesn’t do it for you, simply look carefully at your surroundings. Your furniture, books, possessions. There’s beauty and memories there. Savor them.

WHILE HOOVER DAM was under construction, California began building the Colorado River Aqueduct and Parker Dam. Arizona’s governor, Benjamin B. Moeur, viewed the dam as an act of theft. Like many Arizonans, he worried that Southern California would suck the river dry before Arizona was in a position to divert almost any of its own share, whatever that turned out to be, so he sent a small National Guard detachment to the construction site to make sure that neither the workers nor the dam touched land on the Arizona side of the river—a challenge for a dam builder, you would think. The National Guardsmen borrowed a small ferryboat from Nellie Trent Bush, a state legislator who lived in the town of Parker, a few miles downstream. As the boat approached the site, it became entangled in a cable attached to a construction barge, and the National Guardsmen had to be rescued by their putative enemies, the people working on the dam. Moeur later sent a message to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in which he said that he had “found it necessary to issue a proclamation establishing martial law on the Arizona side of the river at that point and directing the National Guard to use such means as may be necessary to prevent an invasion of the sovereignty and territory of the State of Arizona.” By that time, his National Guard detachment had grown to include many more soldiers, as well as a number of trucks with machine guns mounted on them. Moeur also made Nellie Bush “Admiral of the Arizona Navy.” Nellie

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.

Unfolding according to the contemplative logic of their lyrical orbits, Astral Weeks’s songs unhooked themselves from pop’s dependence on verse/chorus structure, coasting on idling rhythms, raging and subsiding with the ebb and flow of Morrison’s soulful scat. The soundworld – a loose-limbed acoustic tapestry of guitar, double bass, flute, vibraphone and dampened percussion – was unmistakably attributable to the calibre of the musicians convened for the session: Richard Davis, whose formidable bass talents had shadowed Eric Dolphy on the mercurial Blue Note classic Out to Lunch; guitarist Jay Berliner had previous form with Charles Mingus; Connie Kay was drummer with The Modern Jazz Quartet; percussionist/vibesman Warren Smith’s sessionography included Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole, Sam Rivers and American folk mystics Pearls Before Swine. Morrison reputedly barely exchanged a word with the personnel, retreating to a sealed sound booth to record his parts and leaving it to their seasoned expertise to fill out the space. It is a music quite literally snatched out of the air.