Umberto Eco Quotes

When there's an authentic mystery, as opposed to just a question being asked, that's what makes you lean forward.

My sincere hope is that 'The Da Vinci Code,' in addition to entertaining people, will serve as an open door to begin their own explorations.

Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life blood of real civilization.

I feel like if you read something, and it makes you so curious about a topic that you then go read something else, that's exciting.

It is always good to explore the stuff you don't agree with, to try and understand a different lifestyle or foreign worldview. I like to be challenged in that way, and always end up learning something I didn't know.

Sometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

People respond to something which intrigues them instead of something that gives them all the information - particularly in pop, which is, like, the genre for knowing way too much about everyone and everything.

Clever people seem not to feel the natural pleasure of bewilderment, and are always answering questions when the chief relish of a life is to go on asking them.

I don't try to make things mysterious on purpose; I just try to make them interesting.

I think for me I'm always... I find myself to be a very curious person when something interests me and I find that I'm attracted to that mystery.

I've always been into asking the big questions; I'm the last guy out the door at closing time cuz I was sittin' around 'til the wee hours with the other ones who were asking the same things.

In Grade 2, when we had to do a presentation in front of the class, I'd always do things about Ireland or Italy. I could draw maps; I could name all the capitals: I was completely drawn to other lands. I discovered with time that it's a thirst for other people, for otherness, for something fascinating and mysterious.

The problem for me is that reading is, I won't say a sacred, but nevertheless a pretty serious act.

to read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another, from one action to another, from one level of a text to another. The text unveils itself before us, but never allows itself to be possessed; and instead of trying to possess it we should take pleasure in its teasing

Growing up, for years and years I had no idea what the plots of operas were, and that's part of what fascinated me - I could make them up and learn bits and pieces of what was going on over time. There's something about it being always a step away that makes it more fun to chase.

As it is, lovers of inquiry must follow their beloved wherever it may lead.

No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.

For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.

Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.

There are fashions in reading, even in thinking. You don't have to follow them unless you want to. On the other hand, watch out. Don't stick too closely to your favorite subject. That would keep you from adventuring into other fields. It's silly to build a wall around your interests.

I hate books; they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand.

I am very interested in asking questions, and I am very interested in being involved in shows that ask people to think and feel.

Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.

What is "this drive"? It's the tendency to not simply accept things as they are but to want to think about them, to understand them. To not be content to simply feel sad but to ask what sadness means. To not just get a bus pass but to think about the economic reasons getting a bus pass makes sense. I call this tendency the intellectual.