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But the purpose of a story is to teach and to please at once, and what it teaches is how to recognize the snares of the world.

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
Stories
World
Snares
Teaches
Recognize
Please
Teach
Story
Purpose

More quotes by Umberto Eco

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The Art of the Romance, though warning us that it is providing fictions, opens a door into the Palace of Absurdity, and when we have lightly stepped inside, slams it shut behind us.
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Stopgaps do belong to the internal economy of the form, since the Whole requires them, even if only in a subordinate position ... The stopgap Luigi Paryson's 'zeppa' accepts its own banality, because without the speed that the banal allows up, it would slow up a passage that is crucial for the outcome of the work and its interpretation.
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And when someone suggests you believe in a proposition, you must first examine it to see whether it is acceptable, because our reason was created by God, and whatever pleases our reason can but please divine reason, of which, for that matter, we know only what we infer from the processes of our own reason by analogy and often by negation.
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If photography is to be likened to perception, this is not because the former is a natural process but because the latter is also coded.
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An idea you have might not be original. But by creating a novel out of that idea you can make it original.
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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.
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All the theories of conspiracy were always a way to escape our responsibilities. It is a very important kind of social sickness by which we avoid recognizing reality such as it is and avoid our responsibilities.
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The poets did not win the philosophers surrendered.
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Writing doesn't mean necessarily putting words on a sheet of paper. You can write a chapter while walking or eating.
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The good of a book lies in its being read.
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It is obvious that the newspaper produces the opinion of the readers.
Umberto Eco
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You cannot escape one infinite, I told myself, by fleeing to another. You cannot escape the revelation of the identical by taking refuge in the illusion of the multiple.
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Daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh the more you have the more you want, and yet you feel unhappy, sated and unsated at the same time.
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Contemporary societies have lost the sense of the feast but have kept the obscure drive for it.
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Books always speak of other books.
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The hand of God creates it does not conceal.
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Political satire is a serious thing. In democratic newspapers throughout the world there are daily cartoons that often are not even funny, as is the case especially in many English-language newspapers. Instead, they contain a political message, and the artist takes full responsibility.
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To play the trumpet, you must train your lips for a long time. When I was twelve or thirteen I was a good player, but I lost the skill and now I play very badly. I do it every day even so. The reason is that I want to return to my childhood. For me, the trumpet is evidence of the sort of young man I was.
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The thought that all experience will be lost at the moment of my death makes me feel pain and fear... What a waste, decades spent building up experience, only to throw it all away... We remedy this sadness by working. For example, by writing, painting, or building cities.
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Followers of the occult believe in only what they already know, and in those things that confirm what they have already learned.
Umberto Eco