Umberto Eco Quotes

I think it's important for people to always understand what is the context is in what is being said, because that obviously determines what folks are talking about.

Something's that written out is okay, but it's not always a clear indication of what a person means.

Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.

Hey can mean anything. It can mean yes, it can mean maybe, it could mean no, it could mean next week. Hey, the bottom line is you have to understand me to understand hey.

The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they have been in.

Language is a tool adequate to provide any degree of precision relevant to a particular situation.

Metaphor matters because it creates expectations.

I love language, and I love the failure of language.

If we are to look only at the words, then we inquire, not what this man meant, but what those words would mean in the mouth of a normal speaker.

There's a misunderstanding about what nonsensical things are - the idea that they're just funny, and that's the beginning and the end of it. Nonsense is not 'not sense' - it operates at the edge of sense. It teems with sense - at the same time, it resists any kind of universal understanding.

I don't really believe anything I say. Because the nature of my work concerns the spaces between the words, rather than the words themselves.

And those moments that I find mind busting. Meaning like there's a word that I find in a weird place. I love the process of going to the writer and working that out, because that's just basic communication.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands. The average man ought to be allowed a quotation of no less than three sentences, one to make his statement and two to explain what he meant. Ralph Waldo Emerson was about the only one who could stand having his utterances broken up into sentence quotations, and every once in a while even he doesn’t sound so sensible in short snatches.

In a world of more brilliance words don't mean anything.

Don't get stuck on the level of words. A word is no more than a means to an end. It's an abstraction. Not unlike a signpost, it points beyond itself

I like delivering a message, but what I find interesting is providing those details in a different context. Then the readers can make up their minds what it means.

Everyone has to understand what we're saying to one another and there's no point in me thinking the line means this and the person I'm speaking to thinks it means something else. So there's a certain amount of analyzing of text that's of course necessary.

It is the man determines what is said, not the words.

People like to say, 'What do you mean exactly?' I would answer, 'I mean, but not exactly.'

Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality - the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world.

There's what people say, and there's what people mean, and I like to explore the difference between the two.

Paper and ink are all but trash, if I cannot find the thought which the writer did think.

I really value words. I really try to illustrate and let people draw their own conclusions.

People have to find ways of explaining the work.

Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change.