"Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear."
- Umberto Eco
"All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them."
- Umberto Eco
"The beauty of the universe consists not only of unity in variety, but also of variety in unity."
- Umberto Eco
"When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything."
- Umberto Eco
"Too many things together produce noise, and noise is not a tool of knowledge."
- Umberto Eco
"The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else."
- Umberto Eco
"I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing."
- Umberto Eco
"Dan Brown and I read the same books, but he took them seriously."
- Umberto Eco
"A mystic is a hysteric who has met her confessor before her doctor."
- Umberto Eco
"Since I became a novelist I have discovered that I am biased. Either I think a new novel is worse than mine and I don’t like it, or I suspect it is better than my novels and I don’t like it."
- Umberto Eco
"The poets did not win; the philosophers surrendered."
- Umberto Eco
"What is a saint supposed to do, if not convert wolves?"
- Umberto Eco
"Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend."
- Umberto Eco
"I sought peace in everything, but never was I happier than in a corner with a book."
- Umberto Eco
"Never affirm, always allude: allusions are made to test the spirit and probe the heart."
- Umberto Eco
"Your masters at Oxford have taught you to idolize reason, drying up the prophetic capacities of your heart!"
- Umberto Eco
"three fingers hold the pen, but the whole body works."
- Umberto Eco
"I suspect that there is no serious scholar who doesn’t like to watch television. I’m just the only one who confesses."
- Umberto Eco
"From shit, thus, I extract pure Shinola"
- Umberto Eco
"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."
- Ernest Hemingway
"Every one of us is giving his or her money, time, voice, or at least attention to something. As long as it’s something you value, it doesn’t have to be everything you value. It’s when we give our money, time, voice, and attention to things we don’t value that we become wastrels."