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It was awkward, revisiting a world you have never seen before: like coming home, after a long journey, to someone else’s house.
Umberto Eco
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Umberto Eco
Age: 84 †
Born: 1932
Born: January 5
Died: 2016
Died: February 19
Essayist
Historian
Literary Critic
Literary Scholar
Medievalist
Novelist
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Semiotician
Translator
Lissändria
Umberto Ecco
Umberto Eccounstino
Humberto Eco
Dedalus
Umberto Eko
Oumperto Eko
Eco Umberto
U. Eco
Someone
Home
Revisiting
Long
Awkward
Never
Journey
Like
Coming
World
Seen
House
Else
More quotes by Umberto Eco
You cannot believe what you are saying. Well, no. Hardly ever. But the philosopher is like the poet. The latter composes ideal letters for an ideal nymph, only to plumb with his words the depths of passion. The philosopher tests the coldness of his gaze, to see how far he can undermine the fortress of bigotry.
Umberto Eco
What we honor as prudence in our elders is simply panic in action.
Umberto Eco
There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four.
Umberto Eco
Once upon a time there were mass media, and they were wicked, of course, and there was a guilty party. Then there were the virtuous voices that accused the criminals. And Art (ah, what luck!) offered alternatives, for those who were not prisoners to the mass media.
Umberto Eco
The step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is all too brief.
Umberto Eco
Translation is the art of failure.
Umberto Eco
But why doesn't the Gospel ever say that Christ laughed? I asked, for no good reason. Is Jorge right? Legions of scholars have wondered whether Christ laughed. The question doesn't interest me much. I believe he never laughed, because, omniscient as the son of God had to be, he knew how we Christians would behave. . . .
Umberto Eco
I feel that I am a scholar who only with the left hand writes novels.
Umberto Eco
We invented the car, and it made it easier for us to crash and die. If I gave a car to my grandfather, he would die in five minutes, while I have grown up slowly to accept speed.
Umberto Eco
I think that at a certain age, say fifteen or sixteen, poetry is like masturbation. But later in life good poets burn their early poetry, and bad poets publish it. Thankfully I gave up rather quickly.
Umberto Eco
Is it possible to say It was a beautiful morning at the end of November without feeling like Snoopy?
Umberto Eco
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.
Umberto Eco
After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes?
Umberto Eco
Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.
Umberto Eco
How clear everything becomes when you look from the darkness of a dungeon.
Umberto Eco
Since I became a novelist I have discovered that I am biased. Either I think a new novel is worse than mine and I don’t like it, or I suspect it is better than my novels and I don’t like it.
Umberto Eco
What did I really think fifteen years ago? A nonbeliever, I felt guilty in the midst of all those believers. And since it seemed to me that they were in the right, I decided to believe, as you might decide to take an aspirin: It can't hurt and you might get better.
Umberto Eco
The followers must feel besieged.
Umberto Eco
The hand of God creates it does not conceal.
Umberto Eco
Our most noted satirists are true columnists and their opinions can be worth more than any well-documented exposé.
Umberto Eco