What's that got to do with anything?

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

All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.

— Umberto Eco

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

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

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

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

Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another.

— Umberto Eco

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

With all of its defects, the global market makes war less likely, even between the USA and China.

— Umberto Eco

“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

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

“…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

“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

Followers of the occult believe in only what they already know, and in those things that confirm what they have already learned.

— Umberto Eco

There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics.

— Umberto Eco