The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.
Umberto EcoRead
A novel is a machine for generating interpretations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A novel stimulates a variety of interpretations and meanings from readers.
Umberto Eco's quote suggests that a novel is not just a story but a complex construct that encourages readers to derive their own meanings and interpretations. Each reader brings their experiences and perspectives, resulting in a diverse array of understandings, highlighting the interactive relationship between text and reader.
Themes
NovelInterpretationReadingLiteratureMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a book club discussion about the different interpretations of a novel.
More from Umberto Eco
All quotes →I think that at a certain age, say fifteen or sixteen, poetry is like masturbation. But later in life good poets burn their early poetry, and bad poets publish it. Thankfully I gave up rather quickly.
Umberto EcoRead
But why do some people support [the heretics]?" "Because it serves their purposes, which concern the faith rarely, and more often the conquest of power." "Is that why the church of Rome accuses all its adversaries of heresy?" "That is why, and that is also why it recognizes as orthodoxy any heresy it can bring back under its own control or must accept because the heresy has become too strong.
Umberto EcoRead
You die, but most of what you have accumulated will not be lost; you are leaving a message in a bottle.
Umberto EcoRead
"Then we are living in a place abandoned by God," I said, disheartened. "Have you found any places where God would have felt at home?" William asked me, looking down from his great height.
Umberto EcoRead
The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.
Umberto EcoRead
Similar quotes
There are now 30-year-old Mexican writers who do great novels in which Mexico isn't even mentioned.
Carlos FuentesRead
Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
Mark TwainRead
Comerado, this is no book,Who touches this, touches a man,(Is it night? Are we here alone?)It is I you hold, and who holds you,I spring from the pages into your arms-decease calls me forth.
Walt WhitmanRead
Not very good, I am afraid. But now really, do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?" "The nicest—by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend upon the binding.
Jane AustenRead
Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Raymond ChandlerRead
And I desperately needed books that would take me out of my environment and show me a world where being smart and brave and prepared was more important than being cute or cheerful or knowing the right thing to say. And that's what science fiction and fantasy gave me.
Leigh BardugoRead