Quote

Naturally, everything depends on one's background books and on what one is looking for.

Umberto Eco

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Background
Backgrounds
Naturally
Depends
Books
Looking
Everything
Book

More quotes by Umberto Eco

Image
I consider always the adult life to be the continuous retrieval of childhood.
Umberto Eco
Image
Homer's work hits again and again on the topos of the inexpressible. People will always do that.
Umberto Eco
Image
A writer writes for writers, a non-writer writes for his next-door neighbor or for the manager of the local bank branch, and he fears (often mistakenly) that they would not understand or, in any case, would not forgive his boldness.
Umberto Eco
Image
History is a blood-drenched enigma and the world an error.
Umberto Eco
Image
I don't know, maybe we're always looking for the right place, maybe it's within reach, but we don't recognize it. Maybe to recognize it, we have to believe in it.
Umberto Eco
Image
I was a fervent Catholic, and I belonged to the national organizations, even becoming one of the national leaders, until the age of 21, 22.
Umberto Eco
Image
The Roseicrucians were everywhere, aided by the fact that they didn't exist.
Umberto Eco
Image
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.
Umberto Eco
Image
The step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is all too brief.
Umberto Eco
Image
I felt no passion, no jealousy, no nostalgia. I was hollow, clear-headed, clean, and as emotionless as an aluminum pot.
Umberto Eco
Image
Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: You have to learn the rhythms of respiration - acquire the pace. Otherwise you stop right away.
Umberto Eco
Image
I don't miss my youth. I'm glad I had one, but I wouldn't like to start over.
Umberto Eco
Image
You are always born under the wrong sign, and to live in this world properly you have to rewrite your own horoscope day by day.
Umberto Eco
Image
The ideology of this America wants to establish reassurance through Imitation. But profit defeats ideology, because the consumers want to be thrilled not only by the guarantee of the Good but also by the shudder of the Bad.
Umberto Eco
Image
Our most noted satirists are true columnists and their opinions can be worth more than any well-documented exposé.
Umberto Eco
Image
People are tired of simple things. They want to be challenged.
Umberto Eco
Image
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.
Umberto Eco
Image
I suspect that there is no serious scholar who doesn’t like to watch television. I’m just the only one who confesses.
Umberto Eco
Image
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
Image
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