Umberto Eco Quotes

Hitchcock loves to be misunderstood, because he has based his whole life around misunderstandings.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

The only safety is in the middle of total misunderstanding and deception.

It all depends on the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. - Daupin

What is your name?" asked Lear. Caius," said Kent. And whence do you hail?" From Bonking, sire." Well, yes, lad, as do we all," said Lear, "but from what town?

Each of us assumes everyone else knows what HE is doing. They all assume we know what WE are doing. We don't...Nothing is going on and nobody knows what it is. Nobody is concealing anything except the fact that he does not understand anything anymore and wishes he could go home.

In the essence of truth lies deceit.

I know that when people pull apart, they usually employ misunderstanding as a weapon, deliberately getting hold of the stick's wrong end, impaling themselves on its point in order to prove the perfidy of the other.

The cleverest trick of the Devil is that nobody believes in him. It. Her. Well, we have been very stupid.

He said that he was sure you would be amendable to this course of action." April paused, eyes widening, before she said indignantly, "I believe he may have lied to me!

Lovers always believe one another's sleight-of-hand tricks.

I suppose the advocates of unreason think that there is a better chance of profitably deceiving the populace if they keep it in a state of effervescence.

But why, why, why can't people just say what they mean?

A good liar knows that the most efficient lie is always a truth that has had a key piece removed from it.

By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.

There's no more usual basis of union than mutual misunderstanding.

When a guy says "I have no idea what you're talking about" it means "I'm thinking of exactly what you're saying I did while I lie to you."

I asked you, baby, If you understood- You told me that you didn't, But you thought you would.

Boo, I think I no longer believe in monsters as faces in the floor or feral infants or vampires or whatever. I think at seventeen now I believe the only real monsters might be the type of liar where there's simply no way to tell. The ones who give nothing away.

But that's not the name of a man, it's the name of a mountain! (...) "It is my name," Athos said calmly. "But you said your name was d'Artagnan." "I?" "Yes, you." "That is to say, someone said to me: 'You are M. d'Artagnan?' I replied: 'You think so?' My guards shouted that they were sure of it. I did not want to vex them. Besides, I might have been mistaken.

I have not the pleasure of understanding you.

Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.

I don't know if you have noticed this, but it is quite possible for two human beings to have a conversation in which one or both parties involved has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

I find myself having these conversations where I go...You know, the guy, in that place. The guy in the place with the thing, you know. And it becomes this game of charades. And then finally, we realize that I mean the Pope.