Authors:  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Umberto Eco's Quotes

Umberto Eco profile photo

Born: 1932-01-05
Profession: Novelist
Nation: Italian
Biography of Umberto Eco

See the gallery for quotes by Umberto Eco. You can to use those 7 images of quotes as a desktop wallpapers.
Umberto Eco's quote #1
Umberto Eco's quote #2
Umberto Eco's quote #3
Umberto Eco's quote #4
Umberto Eco's quote #5
Umberto Eco's quote #6
Umberto Eco's quote #7

My father was an accountant and his father was a typographer.

Tags: Accountant, Father

Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.

Tags: Another, Courage, Fear

Perhaps I am not as wise as I like to think I am.

Tags: Perhaps, Wise

The comic is the perception of the opposite; humor is the feeling of it.

Tags: Feeling, Humor, Perception

There are more people than you think who want to have a challenging experience, in which they are obliged to reflect about the past.

Tags: Experience, Past, Reflect

What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible.

Tags: Culture, Infinity

From lies to forgeries the step is not so long, and I have written technical essays on the logic of forgeries and on the influence of forgeries on history.

Tags: History, Lies, Step

I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.

Tags: Capacity, Define, Effect

The good of a book lies in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb.

Tags: Book, Good, Speak

After years of practice, I can walk into a bookstore and understand its layout in a few seconds. I can glance at the spine of a book and make a good guess at its content from a number of signs.

Tags: Book, Good, Understand

Every time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because a novel is like a child. It takes two years after its birth. You have to take care of it. It starts walking, and then speaking.

Tags: After, Care, Time

How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn't have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see.

Tags: Enough, Looking, Sky

My grandfather had a particularly important influence on my life, even though I didn't visit him often, since he lived about three miles out of town and he died when I was six. He was remarkably curious about the world, and he read lots of books.

Tags: Him, Life, Often

The most interesting letters I received about 'The Name of the Rose' were from people in the Midwest that maybe didn't understand exactly, but wanted to understand more and who were excited by this picture of a world which was not their own.

Tags: Picture, Understand, Wanted

There is no great sport in having bullets flying about one in every direction, but I find they have less horror when among them than when in anticipation.

Tags: Direction, Great, Less

When I went from being an academic to being a member of the community of writers some of my former colleagues did look on me with a certain resentment.

Tags: Community, Resentment, Writers

But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

Tags: Mad, Truth, Whole

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.

Tags: Dreams, Hero, Real

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

Tags: Mad, Truth, Whole

Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.

Tags: Learning, Love, Truth

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.

Tags: Life, Nature, Time

In the United States there's a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.

Tags: Good, Success, Successful

But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.

Tags: Country, Everybody, Fact
Visit partners pages
Visit partners pages
Much more quotes by Umberto Eco below the page.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

Tags: God, Men, Stop

Translation is the art of failure.

Tags: Art, Failure

Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.

Tags: Die, Fear, Truth

I don't see the point of having 80 million people online if all they are doing in the end is talking to ghosts in the suburbs.

Tags: End, Point, Talking

People are tired of simple things. They want to be challenged.

Tags: Challenged, Simple, Tired

A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams.

Tags: Dream, Dreams, Scripture

Better reality than a dream: if something is real, then it's real and you're not to blame.

Tags: Blame, Real, Reality

Creativity can only be anarchic, capitalist, Darwinian.

Tags: Capitalist, Creativity, Darwinian

We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death.

Tags: Death, Limit

Every European goes on the streets and sees medieval churches. Not if you live in Indianapolis. The most exciting letters I received were from people in places like that.

Tags: Exciting, Goes, Places

I think every professor and writer is in some way an exhibitionist because his or her normal activity is a theatrical one. When you give a lesson the situation is the same as writing a book. You have to capture the attention, the complicity of your audience.

Tags: Book, Give, Writing

It is a myth of publishers that people want to read easy things.

Tags: Easy, Myth, Read

We like lists because we don't want to die.

Tags: Die, Lists

As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying.

Tags: Human, Language, Philosophy

As an adolescent I wrote comic books, because I read lots of them, and fantasy novels set in Malaysia and Central Africa.

Tags: Africa, Books, Read

I developed a passion for the Middle Ages the same way some people develop a passion for coconuts.

Tags: Develop, Middle, Passion

I write what I write.

Tags: Write

It comes down to a question of attention: it's difficult to use the Net distractedly, unlike the television or the radio.

Tags: Attention, Difficult, Question
Sualci Quotes friends