If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity. Umberto Eco More Quotes by Umberto Eco More Quotes From Umberto Eco I am a professor who writes novels on Sundays Umberto Eco professors sunday writing Usually naive interviewers hover between two mutually contradictory convictions: one, that a text we call creative develops almost instantaneously in the mystic heat of inspirational raptus; or the other, that the writer has followed a recipe, a kind of secret set of rules that they would like to see revealed. There is no set of rules, or, rather, there are many, varied and flexible rules. Umberto Eco creative secret two 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. Umberto Eco fate destiny sadness 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. Umberto Eco steps long lying Reflecting on these complex relationships between reader and story, fiction and life, can constitute a form of therapy against the sleep of reason, which generates monsters. Umberto Eco monsters sleep fiction With all of its defects, the global market makes war less likely, even between the USA and China. Umberto Eco defects china war He who falls in love in bars doesn't need a woman all his own. He can always find one on loan. Umberto Eco love fall needs My poetry had the same functional origin and the same formal configuration as teenage acne. Umberto Eco acne teenage poetry A secret is powerful when it is empty. People often mention the "Masonic secret." What on earth is the Masonic secret? No one can tell. As long as it remains empty it can be filled up with every possible notion, and it has power. Umberto Eco filled-up powerful long Every man is obsessed by the memories of his own youth. Umberto Eco youth men memories There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics. Umberto Eco four people world There are more people than you think who want to have a challenging experience, in which they are obliged to reflect about the past. Umberto Eco people past thinking I started to write [The Name of the Rose] in March of 1978, moved by a seminal idea. I wanted to poison a monk. Umberto Eco names writing ideas All of us were slowly losing that intellectual light that allows you always to tell the similar from the identical, the metaphorical from the real. Umberto Eco light real thinking When we traded the results of our fantasies, it seemed to us-and rightly-that we had proceeded by unwarranted associations, by shortcuts so extraordinary that, if anyone had accused us of really believing them, we would have been ashamed. Umberto Eco association believe thinking By means of the sign, man frees himself from the here and now for abstraction. Umberto Eco here-and-now men mean 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 creativity beach book After years of practice, I can walk into a bookstore and understand its layout in a few seconds. I can glance at the spine of a book and make a good guess at its content from a number of signs. Umberto Eco practice book years A transposable aphorism is a malaise of the urge to be witty, or in other words, a maxim that is untroubled by the fact that the opposite of what it says is equally true so long as it appears to be funny. Umberto Eco opposites witty long There are no stories without meaning. And I am one of those men who can find it even when others fail to see it. Afterwards the story becomes the book of the living, like a blaring trumpet that raises from the tomb those who have been dust for centuries. Umberto Eco dust men book
