Quotes by Umberto Eco

About Umberto Eco:

Umberto Eco is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. He is best known for his groundbreaking 1980 historical mystery novel Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose), an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. He has since written further novels, including Il pendolo di Foucault (Foucault's Pendulum) and L'isola del giorno prima (The Island of the Day Before). His most recent novel Il cimitero di Praga (The Prague Cemetery), released in 2010, was a best-seller.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

Followers of the occult believe in only what they already know, and in those things that confirm what they have already learned.

Umberto Eco

The mobile phone... is a tool for those whose professions require a fast response, such as doctors or plumbers.

Umberto Eco

When I went from being an academic to being a member of the community of writers some of my former colleagues did look on me with a certain resentment.

Umberto Eco

The book is like the spoon, scissors, the hammer, the wheel. Once invented, it cannot be improved. You cannot make a spoon that is better than a spoon... The book has been thoroughly tested, and it's very hard to see how it could be improved on for i...

Umberto Eco

Does the novel have to deepen the psychology of its heroes? Certainly the modern novel does, but the ancient legends did not do the same. Oedipus' psychology was deduced by Aeschylus or Freud, but the character is simply there, fixed in a pure and te...

Umberto Eco

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.

Umberto Eco

Better reality than a dream: if something is real, then it's real and you're not to blame.

Umberto Eco

We like lists because we don't want to die.

Umberto Eco

It comes down to a question of attention: it's difficult to use the Net distractedly, unlike the television or the radio.

Umberto Eco

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.

Umberto Eco

There is nothing more difficult to define than an aphorism.

Umberto Eco

Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious.

Umberto Eco

If western culture is shown to be rich, it is because, even before the Enlightenment, it has tried to 'dissolve' harmful simplifications through inquiry and the critical mind.

Umberto Eco

Perhaps I am not as wise as I like to think I am.

Umberto Eco

Because of lies, we can produce and invent a possible world.

Umberto Eco

Every European goes on the streets and sees medieval churches. Not if you live in Indianapolis.

Umberto Eco

The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish and the English have spent centuries killing each other.

Umberto Eco

When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer.

Umberto Eco

I developed a passion for the Middle Ages the same way some people develop a passion for coconuts.

Umberto Eco

My father was an accountant and his father was a typographer.

Umberto Eco

Author Bio

  • NameUmberto Eco
  • DescriptionItalian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist
  • AliasesUmberto Ecco; Umberto Eccounstino
  • BornJanuary 5, 1932
  • CountryItaly
  • ProfessionPhilosopher; Writer; Novelist; Essayist; Educationist
  • AwardsOfficer Of The Legion Of Honour; Commandeur Des Arts Et Des Lettres?; Order Of Merit For Arts And Science; Austrian State Prize For European Literature; Grand Cross Of The Order Of Merit Of The Federal Republic Of Germany With Star; Princess Of Asturias Award - Communications And Humanities