Gerald Brenan > Quotes

“Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself.”
― Gerald Brenan

“It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.”
― Gerald Brenan

“When I write a page that reads badly I know that it is myself who has written it. When it reads well it has come through from somewhere else.”
― Gerald Brenan

“The traveler, alas, is at the mercy of his aesthetic sensations. A fine evening, a seat under a plant tree, the smile of a peasant girl, the scent of orange flower, a view over mountains or river—and he feels at home. His country is not the land where his friends live, but the wider territory of beautiful things—the territory where, if one agrees with Stendhal, he collects those promissory notes of happiness which give a precious fraction of their value when they are pocketed. He is therefore continually subject to accidents. An ugly town, a rainy day, and unsympathetic hotel, and he is at once a double exile—equally far from his native land and from that ideal country which he has set out to visit. The only recourse left is a bottle of wine.”
― Gerald Brenan, The Face of Spain

“Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by these involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.”
― Gerald Brenan

“The Spanish economic system is like a game of musical chairs, in which there are only half as many seats as there are performers.”
― Gerald Brenan, The Face of Spain