Quotes from My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
By Emma Ward | On September 1, 2017 | Updated August 18, 2026 | Comments (0)
Miles Franklin (1879 – 1954) was an Australian writer best known for her 1901 novel, My Brilliant Career. The following selection of quotes from My Brilliant Career help us to know the author better, for it has elements of autobiography.
Franklin may not be as well remembered by readers worldwide as she is in her native land, but her works are well worth exploring.
This description is from the St. Martin’s Press edition of My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin:
“Originally published in 1901, My Brilliant Career was written when Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin was only sixteen years old. But Miles Franklin was decades ahead of her time, and this book was written for an audience not yet born.
For the character of Sybilla Melvyn, Miles Franklin created someone who voices with incredible charm but deadly accuracy the fears, conflicts, and torments of every young woman coming of age in a man’s world. Red-haired, impetuous, sharp-tongued, Sybilla has ambitions that reach far beyond here small-town life in the Australian outback.”
. . . . . . . . .
“I studied him attentively all the while. What were his ideas and sentiments it were hard to tell: he never expressed any. He was fearfully and wonderfully quiet. Yet his was an intelligent silence, not of that wooden brainless description which casts a damper on any company, neither was it of the remorse or dreaming order.”
. . . . . . . . .
“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.”
. . . . . . . . .
“… No one would dream of calling you plain, let alone ugly; brilliant is the word that best describes you.”
. . . . . . . . .
“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.”
. . . . . . . . .
“I sat long by my writing table that night-thinking long, long thoughts, foolish thoughts, sad ones, merry ones, old headed thoughts, and the sweet sweet thoughts of youth and love. It seemed to me that men were not so invincible and invulnerable as I had imagined them-it appeared they had feeling and affections after all.”
. . . . . . . . .
“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.”
. . . . . . . . .
You might also like: My Brilliant Career (1979 film)
. . . . . . . . .
“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.”
. . . . . . . . .
“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!”
. . . . . . . . .
Leave a Reply