I think of myself as a serious professor who, during the weekend, writes novels. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
There is only one thing that you write for yourself, and that is a shopping list. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Writing doesn't mean necessarily putting words on a sheet of paper. You can write a chapter while walking or eating. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
If somebody writes a book and doesn't care for the survival of that book, he's an imbecile. — 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
I always assume that a good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer is not… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
At a certain moment, I decided to write a story. I had no more small children to tell them stories. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Socrates ... did not write. It seems academically obvious that he perished because he did not publish! — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
An idea you have might not be original. But by creating a novel out of that idea you can make it original. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I discovered ... that a novel has nothing to do with words in the first instance. Writing a novel is a cosmological… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Every time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
A writer writes for writers, a non-writer writes for his next-door neighbor or for the manager of the local bank branch, and… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I think every professor and writer is in some way an exhibitionist because his or her normal activity is a theatrical one.… — 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
The thought that all experience will be lost at the moment of my death makes me feel pain and fear... What a… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
It is clear that when you write a story that takes place in the past, you try to show what really happened… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
If you want to become a man of letters and perhaps write some Histories one day, you must also lie and invent… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“[W]hen I put Jorge in the library I did not yet know he was the murderer. He acted on his own, so… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“You cannot change the world with ideas. People with few ideas are less likely to make mistakes; they follow what everyone else… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“I transcribe my text with no concern for timeliness. In the years when I discovered the Abbé Vallet volume, there was a… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Given that there are seven billion people living on this earth, there is a consistent quantity of imbecile or idiot, okay. Previously,… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
There must be a connection between the lust for power and impotentia coeundi. I liked Marx, I was sure that he and… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“Dostoevsky was writing about losers. The main character of The Iliad, Hector, is a loser. It’s very boring to talk about winners.… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“There are magic moments, involving great physical fatigue and intense motor excitement, that produce visions of people known in the past ("en… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I wrote a novel because I had a yen to do it. I believe this is sufficient reason to set out to… — 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
The author should die once he has finished writing. So as not to trouble the path of the text. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I started to write [The Name of the Rose] in March of 1978, moved by a seminal idea. I wanted to poison… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I write stories about conspiracies and paranoid characters while I am, in fact, a very skeptical person. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“What model reader did I want as i was writing? An accomplice, to be sure, one who would play my game.” — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
When I went from being an academic to being a member of the community of writers some of my former colleagues did… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
I love the secrecy of writing fiction. When I write a novel, I don't tell anybody what I'm doing. I'm living in… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
[In my writing] I know that I have made a caricature out of [others' academic] theories [but] I think that caricatures are… — 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
![“[W]hen I put Jorge in the library I did not yet know he was the murderer. He acted on his own, so to speak. And it must not be thought that this is an 'idealistic' position, as if I were saying that the characters have an autonomous life and the author, in a kind of trance, makes them behave as…” quote by Umberto Eco](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/544/umberto-eco-313_characters_w-hen-i-put-jorge-in-the-library-i-did-n_2581277.jpg)
![“I started to write [The Name of the Rose] in March of 1978, moved by a seminal idea. I wanted to poison a monk.” quote by Umberto Eco](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/ffa/umberto-eco-313_flowers_i-started-to-write-the-name-of-the-rose_1261795.jpg)
![“[In my writing] I know that I have made a caricature out of [others' academic] theories [but] I think that caricatures are frequently good portraits.” quote by Umberto Eco](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/d2d/umberto-eco-313_academic_in-my-writing-i-know-that-i-have-made-a_2165648.jpg)
