One road to happiness is to cultivate curiosity about everything. Not only about people but about subjects, not only about the arts but about history and foreign customs. Not only about countries and cities, but about plants and animals. Not only about lichened rocks and curious markings on the bark of trees, but about stars and atoms. Not only about your friends but about that strange labyrinth we inhabit which we call ourselves. Then, if we do that, we will never suffer a moment's boredom.
Gerald BrenanAs Coleridge said, "We receive but what we give." The happy life is a life of continual generosity in which we go out to meet and acclaim the world.
Gerald BrenanWe confess our bad qualities to others out of fear of appearing naive or ridiculous by not being aware of them.
Gerald BrenanPoets and painters are outside the class system, or rather they constitute a special class of their own, like the circus people and the Gypsies.
Gerald Brenan