To escape the power of the unknown, to prove to yourself that you don't believe in it, you accept its spells. Like… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
On sober reflection, I find few reasons for publishing my Italian version of an obscure, neo-Gothic French version of a seventeenth century… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Your masters at Oxford have taught you to idolize reason, drying up the prophetic capacities of your heart! — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
But why doesn't the Gospel ever say that Christ laughed?" I asked, for no good reason. "Is Jorge right?" "Legions of scholars… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening,… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
To play the trumpet, you must train your lips for a long time. When I was twelve or thirteen I was a… — 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
“And when someone suggests you believe in a proposition, you must first examine it to see whether it is acceptable, because our… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
Reflecting on these complex relationships between reader and story, fiction and life, can constitute a form of therapy against the sleep of… — 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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“…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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
With all of its defects, the global market makes war less likely, even between the USA and China. — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
