And what would we be, we sinful creatures, without fear, perhaps the most foresighted, the most loving of the divine gifts?

— Umberto Eco

Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another.

— Umberto Eco

Any fact becomes important when it’s connected to another. The connection changes the perspective; it leads you to think that every detail of the world, every voice, every word written or spoken has more than its literal meaning, that it tells us a Secret.

— Umberto Eco

Beauty is boring because it is predictable.

— Umberto Eco

Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must, or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.

— Umberto Eco

Berlusconi is a genius in communication. Otherwise, he would never have become so rich.

— Umberto Eco

Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means...

— Umberto Eco

But chance has a taste for conspiracy.

— Umberto Eco

But is the unicorn a falsehood? It's the sweetest of animals and a noble symbol. It stands for Christ and for chastity; it can be captured only by setting a virgin in the forest, so that the animal, catching her most chaste odor, will go and lay its head in her lap, offering itself as prey to the hunters' snares."" So it is said, Also. But many tend to believe that it's a fable, an invention of the pagans."" What a disappointment," I said. "I would have liked to encounter one, crossing a wood. Otherwise, what's the pleasure of crossing a wood?

— Umberto Eco

But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects.

— Umberto Eco