In a novel, my feelings and sense of outrage can find a broader means of expression which would be more symbolic and applicable to many European countries.

I prefer insomnia to anaesthesia.

I vividly remember the stories my grandfather told me about the carnage of the First World War, which people tend to forget was one of the worst massacres in human history.

It's the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection.

I live quietly at home among my family and friends.

But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.

People with lots of doubts sometimes find life more oppressive and exhausting than others, but they're more energetic - they aren't robots.

But I don't think I have any particular talent for prediction, because when you have three or four elements in hand, you don't have to be a genius to reach certain conclusions.

There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about.

Eco sees the intellectual as an organizer of culture, someone who can run a magazine or a museum. An administrator, in fact. I think this is a melancholy situation for an intellectual.

Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.

Love is everything. Nothing else but love can define the destiny of humanity.

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To me dreams are part of nature, which harbors no intention to deceive but expresses something as best it can.

I like being independent; I like doing things myself. I'm an instinctual person.

I did loads of student films and fringe theatre. I worked for free a lot.

The light is already there. In Zen Buddhism there's a little speck of dust on the mirror, and that's us.

The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise.

All writers have the idea that they are famous.

To know one's ignorance is the best part of knowledge.

A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.