I am not on Facebook and on Twitter because the purpose of my life is to avoid messages. I receive too many messages from the world, and so I try to avoid that.
Umberto EcoIt is necessary to meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once.
Umberto EcoOnce you reach your fifties, you have to stop being interested in the present and write only on Elizabethan poets.
Umberto EcoTo escape the power of the unknown, to prove to yourself that you don't believe in it, you accept its spells. Like an avowed atheist who sees the Devil at night, you reason: He certainly doesn't exist; this is therefore an illusion, perhaps a result of indigestion. But the Devil is sure that he exists, and believes in his upside-down theology. What, then, will frighten him? You make the sign of the cross, and he vanishes in a puff of brimstone.
Umberto Eco