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For such is the fate of parody: it must never fear exaggerating. If it strikes home, it will only prefigure something that others will then do without a smile--and without a blush--in steadfast virile seriousness.

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
Home
Parody
Without
Steadfast
Must
Seriousness
Something
Strikes
Never
Smile
Fate
Virile
Fear
Exaggerating
Others
Blush

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That is a real attitude - to see everything as being meaningful, even the less important things, to prove something, even the greater problems of life.
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The monkish vows keep us far from that sink of vice that is the female body, but often they bring us close to other errors. Can I finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon when my eyes, in choir, happen to linger on the beardless face of a novice, pure and fresh as a maidens?
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I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.
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The cultivated person's first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the encyclopedia.
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Beauty has never been absolute and immutable but has taken on different aspects depending on the historical period and the country
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If you want to use television to teach somebody, you must first teach them how to use television.
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I have to admit that I only read War and Peace when I was 40. But I knew the basics before then.
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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.
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Because of lies, we can produce and invent a possible world.
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He who falls in love in bars doesn't need a woman all his own. He can always find one on loan.
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Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used to tell at all.
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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?
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What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible.
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Creativity can only be anarchic, capitalist, Darwinian.
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Better reality than a dream: if something is real, then it's real and you're not to blame.
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Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious.
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Living the same sorrows three times was a suffering, but it was a suffering to relive even the same joys. The joy of life is born from feeling, whether it be joy or grief, always of short duration, and woe to those who know they will enjoy eternal bliss.
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I started to work in television for three or four years, in 1954. There was one channel of television, black and white. But it could be entertaining and educational. During the evening they showed important plays, opera or Shakespeare's tragedies.
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When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer.
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American coffee can be a pale solution served at a temperature of 100oC
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