Umberto Eco Quotes
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I write what I write.
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From lies to forgeries the step is not so long, and I have written technical essays on the logic of forgeries and on the influence of forgeries on history.
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It is clear that when you write a story that takes place in the past, you try to show what really happened in those times. But you are always moved by the suspicion that you are also showing something about our contemporary world.
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Yes, I know, it's not the truth, but in a great history little truths can be altered so that the greater truth emerges.
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Our most noted satirists are true columnists, and their opinions can be worth more than any well-documented expose.
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The function of memory is not only to preserve, but also to throw away. If you remembered everything from your entire life, you would be sick.
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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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... luckily, Eden is soon populated. The ethical dimension begins when the other appears on the scene.
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'A sack,' Baudolino explained, like a man who knows a trade well, 'is like a grape harvest: you have to divide the tasks. There are those who press the grapes, those who carry off the must in the tuns, those who cook for others, others who go to fetch the good wine from last year.... a sack is a serious job,'
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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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Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and those bastards always talk about the purity of race.
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As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying.
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You’ll come back To me . . . It’s written in the stars, you see, you’ll come back. You’ll come back, it’s a fact that I am strong because I do believe in you.
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National identity is the last bastion of the dispossessed. But the meaning of identity is now based on hatred, on hatred for those who are not the same.
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I think of myself as a serious professor who, during the weekend, writes novels.
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When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.
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Nothing is more fleeting than external form, which withers and alters like the flowers of the field at the appearance of autumn.
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New Orleans is not in the grip of a neurosis of a denied past; it passes out memories generously like a great lord; it doesn't have to pursue "the real thing."
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The language of Europe is translation.
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I have a good memory. But I would be interested in memory even if I had a bad memory, because I believe that memory is our soul. If we lose our memory completely, we are without a soul.
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Conspiracies and all the theories of conspiracy are a part of the canon of fakes. And I'm involved, in all of my writings, the theoretical ones as well as the novels, with the production of fakes.
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The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.
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I always assume that a good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer is not aware of.
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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.