823 Quotes by Umberto Eco

I have to admit that I only read ‘War and Peace’ when I was 40. But I knew the basics before then.

It seems to me that more plots have been imagined than really exist.

Diotallevi and Belbo, both from Piedmont, often claimed that any good Piedmontese had the ability to listen politely, look you in the eye, and say “You think so?” in a tone of such apparent sincerity that you immediately felt his profound disapproval.

What did I really think fifteen years ago? A nonbeliever, I felt guilty in the midst of all those believers. And since it seemed to me that they were in the right, I decided to believe, as you might decide to take an aspirin: It can’t hurt and you might get better.

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

The Roseicrucians were everywhere, aided by the fact that they didn’t exist.

Can you call yourself a coward simply because the courage of others seems to you out of proportion to the triviality of the occasion?

Having reached the end of my poor sinner’s life, my hair now white, I grow old as the world does, waiting to be lost in the bottomless pit of silent and deserted divinity, sharing in the light of angelic intelligences;.

The “thesis neurosis” has begun: the student abandons the thesis, returns to it, feels unfulfilled, loses focus, and uses his thesis as an alibi to avoid other challenges in his life that he is too cowardly to address. This student will never graduate.