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I discovered ... that a novel has nothing to do with words in the first instance. Writing a novel is a cosmological matter, like the story told by Genesis (we all have to choose our role models, as Woody Allen puts it).

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
Matter
Novel
Woody
First
Roles
Genesis
Writing
Told
Puts
Like
Story
Discovered
Words
Instance
Stories
Models
Firsts
Role
Cosmological
Nothing
Choose
Allen

More quotes by Umberto Eco

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I write what I write.
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Love flourishes in expectation. Expectation strolls through the spacious fields of Time towards Opportunity.
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A transposable aphorism is a malaise of the urge to be witty, or in other words, a maxim that is untroubled by the fact that the opposite of what it says is equally true so long as it appears to be funny.
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He had prepared his death much earlier, in his imagination, unaware that his imagination, more creative than he, was planning the reality of that death.
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We are a pluralist civilisation because we allow mosques to be built in our countries, and we are not going to stop simply because Christian missionaries are thrown into prison in Kabul. If we did so, we too would become Taliban.
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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.
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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.
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It is obvious that the newspaper produces the opinion of the readers.
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A library's ideal function is to be a little bit like a bouquiniste's stall, a place for trouvailles.
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To read a paper book is another experience: you can do it on a ship, on the branch of a tree, on your bed, even if there is a blackout.
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I enjoyed your article, but I preferred my own.
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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.
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The more things you know, or pretend to know, the more powerful you are. It doesn't matter if the things are true. What counts, remember, is to possess a secret.
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The step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is all too brief.
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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. . . .
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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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Well, Diotallevi and I are planning a reform in higher education. A School of Comparative Irrelevance, where useless or impossibe courses are given. The school's aim is to turn out scholars capable of endlessly increasing the number of unnecessary subjects.
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Two cliches make us laugh. A hundred cliches move us. For we sense dimly that the cliches are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.
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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.
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How beautiful was the spectacle of nature not yet touched by the often perverse wisdom of man!
Umberto Eco