My poetry had the same functional origin and the same formal configuration as teenage acne. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
For Mallarmé naming an object meant suppressing three-quarters of its poetic pleasure (which consists in the joy of guessing bit by bit… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Once you reach your fifties, you have to stop being interested in the present and write only on Elizabethan poets. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“Poetry… it consumed Sappho’s young years, it nourished Goethe’s old age. Drug, the Greeks called it, both poison and medicine.” — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
When the poet is in love, he is incapable of writing poetry on love. He has to write when he remembers that… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“And so it was that the Poet, through an excess of theological refinement, was unable to satisfy his coarse carnal passion.” — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I do not remember where I read that there are two kinds of poets: the good poets, who at a certain point… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Stopgaps do belong to the internal economy of the form, since the Whole requires them, even if only in a subordinate position… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
You cannot believe what you are saying." "Well, no. Hardly ever. But the philosopher is like the poet. The latter composes ideal… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Rem tene, verba sequentur: grasp the subject, and the words will follow. This, I believe, is the opposite of what happens with… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I think that at a certain age, say fifteen or sixteen, poetry is like masturbation. But later in life good poets burn… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“It is necessary to create constraints, in order to invent freely. In poetry the constraint can be imposed by meter, foot, rhyme,… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I think that at a certain age, say fifteen or sixteen, poetry is like masturbation. But later in life good poets burn their early… — Umberto Eco Copy Share
Followers of the occult believe in only what they already know, and in those things that confirm what they have already learned. — Umberto Eco Copy Share
“This has nothing to do with realism (even if it explains also realism). A completely real world can be constructed, in which asses fly… — Umberto Eco Copy Share
“…there’s nothing in this world that demands more caution than the truth. To tell the truth is like leeching one’s own heart...” — Umberto Eco Copy Share
The book is like the spoon, scissors, the hammer, the wheel. Once invented, it cannot be improved. You cannot make a spoon that is… — Umberto Eco Copy Share
“No algorithm exists for the metaphor, nor can a metaphor be produced by means of a computer’s precise instructions, no matter what the volume… — Umberto Eco Copy Share
With all of its defects, the global market makes war less likely, even between the USA and China. — Umberto Eco Copy Share
The Fundamental Principle that governs - or ought to govern -human affairs if we wish to avoid misunderstandings, conflicts, or pointless utopias, is negotiation. — Umberto Eco Copy Share
American coffee can be a pale solution served at a temperature of 100 degrees centigrade in plastic thermos cups, usually obligatory in railroad stations… — Umberto Eco Copy Share
Listening doesn't mean trying to understand. Anything, however trifling, may be of use one day. What matters is to know something that others don't… — Umberto Eco Copy Share
They say that a cat, if it falls from a window and hits its nose, can lose its sense of smell and then, because… — Umberto Eco Copy Share
There are magic moments, involving great physical fatigue and intense motor excitement, that produce visions of people known in the past. As I learned… — Umberto Eco Copy Share
There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics. — Umberto Eco Copy Share
