Top 117 Quotes by Umberto Eco

Every European goes on the streets and sees medieval churches. Not if you live in Indianapolis. The most exciting letters I received were from people in places like that.

One can be a great poet and be politically stupid.

Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: You have to learn the rhythms of respiration - acquire the pace. Otherwise you stop right away.

In the United States there's a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death.

Media populism means appealing to people directly through media. A politician who can master the media can shape political affairs outside of parliament and even eliminate the mediation of parliament.

It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion.

When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer.

When someone has to intervene to defend the liberty of the press, that society is sick.