Umberto Eco Quotes

A great speech is literature.

I go onstage and I talk, and I remember what I'm saying, and I track it.

Despite all the technical improvements, it still boils down to a man or a woman and a microphone, playing music, sharing stories, talking about issues - communicating with an audience.

You have to open up on stage.

I love essays, but they're not always the best way to communicate to a larger audience.

You've got to have a sense of different audiences. I'm a kind of performer manque - I come from a long line of failed actors!

word thrower … phrase maker

I've always been really open onstage.

As a presenter, you have to speak with artificial energy and enthusiasm.

Writing and speaking and communicating, it's something important to me, and something I want to get better at.

For me, the monologue was the favorite thing I had done in radio. It was based on writing, but in the end it was radio, it was standing up and leaning forward into the dark and talking, letting words come out of you.

I think the more you do this and the more comfortable you become on stage, you start speaking more and becoming more of a character in yourself.

It's communication - that's what theatre is all about.

Writing is showbusiness for shy people. That's how I see it.

The point of theatre is transformation: to make an extraordinary event out of ordinary material right in front of an audience's eyes. Where the germ of the idea came from is pretty much irrelevant. What matters to every theatre maker I know is speaking clearly to the audience 'right now.'

Acting is the most communicative thing I can imagine doing.

This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.

When you're writing, you are robbed of your delivery.

I'm an orator, a raconteur.

What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.

What I've always done as an entertainer is try to come up with things that people will find interesting, or compelling, or humorous.

Why would anyone want to read what I have to say?

Language is a more recent technology. Your body language, your eyes, your energy will come through to your audience before you even start speaking.

Being a comfortable public speaker, which involves easily being able to go off-script, strongly signals competence.

Giving a true speech, a true, passionate speech, is old-school football.