Umberto Eco Quotes

Umberto Eco — Italian Novelist born on January 05, 1932,

Umberto Eco OMRI 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, an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. He has since written other novels, including Il pendolo di Foucault and L'isola del giorno prima. His novel Il cimitero di Praga, released in 2010, was a best-seller... (wikipedia)

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

To play the trumpet, you must train your lips for a long time. When I was twelve or thirteen I was a good player, but I lost the skill and now I play very badly. I do it every day even so. The reason is that I want to return to my childhood. For me, the trumpet is evidence of the sort of young man I was.

Musical compositions can be very sad - Chopin - but you have the pleasure of this sadness. The cheap consolation is: you will be happy. The higher consolation is the pleasure and recognition of your unhappiness, the pleasure of having recognised that fate, destiny and life are such as they are and so you reach a higher form of consciousness.

I think of myself as a serious professor who, during the weekend, writes novels.

Certainly, light fiction exists and encompasses mysteries or second-class romance novels, books that are read on the beach, whose only aim is to entertain. These books are not concerned with style or creativity - instead they are successful because they are repetitive and follow a template that readers enjoy.

Umberto Eco Quotes

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