And so I fell devoutly asleep and slept a long time, because young people seem to need sleep more than the old, who have already slept so much and are preparing to sleep for all eternity. Umberto Eco More Quotes by Umberto Eco More Quotes From Umberto Eco All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them. Umberto Eco publish poet writing I lacked the courage to investigate the weaknesses of the wicked, because I discovered they are the same as the weaknesses of the saintly. Umberto Eco wicked weakness We stopped to browse in the cases, and now that William - with his new glasses on his nose - could linger and read the books, at every title he discovered he let out exclamations of happiness, either because he knew the work, or because he had been seeking it for a long time, or finally because he had never heard it mentioned and was highly excited and titillated. In short, for him every book was like a fabulous animal that he was meeting in a strange land. Umberto Eco glasses animal book 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. Umberto Eco hurt believe thinking Monsters exist because they are part of the divine plan, and in the horrible features of those same monsters the power of the creator is revealed. Umberto Eco horrible divine monsters 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. Umberto Eco common-sense liberty inspiration A narrator should not supply interpretations of his work; otherwise he would have not written a novel, which is a machine for generating interpretations. Umberto Eco narrators machines work Thus we have on stage two men, each of whom knows nothing of what he believes the other knows, and to deceive each other reciprocally both speak in allusions, each of the two hoping (in vain) that the other holds the key to his puzzle. Umberto Eco keys men believe Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told. Umberto Eco speak stories book I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed. Umberto Eco stories together way The author should die once he has finished writing. So as not to trouble the path of the text. Umberto Eco trouble path writing I returned to the courtyard and saw that the sun had grown weaker. Beautiful and clear as it had been, the morning (as the day approached the completion of its first half) was becoming damp and misty. Heavy clouds moved from the north and were invading the top of the mountain, covering it with a light brume. It seemed to be fog, and perhaps fog was also rising from the ground, but at that altitude it was difficult to distinguish the mists that rose from below and those that come down from above. It was becoming hard to discern the bulk of the more distant buildings. Umberto Eco clouds morning beautiful Daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh; the more you have the more you want, and yet you feel unhappy, sated and unsated at the same time. Umberto Eco unhappy flesh sleep Each of us is sometimes a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic. A normal person is just a reasonable mix of these components, these four ideal types. Umberto Eco fool normal four I don't know, maybe we're always looking for the right place, maybe it's within reach, but we don't recognize it. Maybe to recognize it, we have to believe in it. Umberto Eco within-reach right-place believe In the Middle Ages, cathendrals and convents burned like tinder; imagining a medieval story without a fire is like imagining a World War II movie in the Pacific without a fighter plane shot down in flames. Umberto Eco flames fire war A mystic is a hysteric who has met her confessor before her doctor. Umberto Eco mystic mets doctors Not bad, not bad at all," Diotallevi said. "To arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text. Umberto Eco pendulums reconstruction said I like nicotine because it excites my brain and helps me work. Umberto Eco help-me brain helping I have to admit that I only read War and Peace when I was 40. But I knew the basics before then. Umberto Eco basics war
