823 Quotes by Umberto Eco

I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.

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.

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.

I love the secrecy of writing fiction. When I write a novel, I don't tell anybody what I'm doing. I'm living in my private world. And it's a great sensation.

As Clark Kent I take care of misunderstood young geniuses; as Superman I punish justly misunderstood old geniuses. I.

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.

Yes, I know, it’s not the truth, but in a great history little truths can be altered so that the greater truth emerges.

I’m always fascinated by losers. Also, in my “Foucault’s Pendulum,” the main characters, who are in a way losers, they are more interesting than the winners.

Every great thinker is someone else’s moron.