823 Quotes by Umberto Eco

It's not the news that makes the newspaper, but the newspaper that makes the news.

За да може един шедьовър да стане шедьовър, е достатъчно да стане изестен, т.е. да погълне всички тълкувания, които е предизвикал, а те ще направят от него онова, което е. Непознатият шедьовър просто не е имал достатъчно читатели, четения, тълкувания.

Binele unei cărţi constă în a fi citită. O carte este făcută din semne, care vorbesc de alte semne, carele, la rândul lor, vorbesc despre lucruri. Fără un ochi care să le citească, o carte poartă semne care nu produc concepte, şi deci mută.

Adso of Melk: The Koran, the Bible of the infidels, a perverse book …William of Baskerville: A book containing a wisdom different from ours.

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.

Text is like a musical score. It is true that Anna Karenina commits suicide in the same sense that is true that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is in C minor (and not in F major, like the Sixth) and begins with G,G,G,E-flat.

The simple are meat for slaughter, to be used when they are useful in causing trouble for the opposing power, and to be sacrificed when they are no longer of use.

Losers, like autodidacts, always know much more than winners. If you want to win, you need to know just one thing and not waste your time on anything else: the pleasures of erudition are reserved for losers. The more a person knows, the more things have gone wrong.

When a spy sells something entirely new, all he needs to do is recount something you could find in any second-hand book stall.