“Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.”
Source: Postscript to the Name of the Rose
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Umberto Eco 120
Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic… 1932–2016Related quotes
Why I Am An Agnostic (1929)
On who gets to “gaze” or be “gazed upon” in “HIJACKING THE NARRATIVE: A CONVERSATION WITH SALLY WEN MAO” https://theadroitjournal.org/2019/03/21/hijacking-the-narrative-a-conversation-with-sally-wen-mao/ in Adroit Journal (2019 Mar 21)
“Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one.”
Nobel Prize Speech (1954)
Context: Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or be forgotten. Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day. For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.
Introduction, page 9 (ISBN 9780141033570).
Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)