Ruth Park

Then she said, with piteous defiance, "If I could love her, the Good Lord could, and he won't be too hard on an old lady who didn't have an easy life.

What has being a girl to do with anything if a person in properly qualified?' ... 'It's what you call prejudice,' she said.

And when he got home he started on Mumma. He hated her then, because in her fatness and untidiness and drabness she reminded him of what he himself was when he was sober.

The announcer, in milky tones, rolled out the commercial; it was all about some sort of washing powder that made laundry days a mere frolic in the backyard

[a]nd the Pig Man came in from Waitomo and swore that if Louisa didn't marry him he'd damn well vote Labour at the next ele