Once you reach your fifties, you have to stop being interested in the present and write only on Elizabethan poets.

As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying.

The real hero is always a hero by mistake.

The most interesting letters I received about 'The Name of the Rose' were from people in the Midwest that maybe didn't understand exactly, but wanted to understand more and who were excited by this picture of a world which was not their own.

How beautiful was the spectacle of nature not yet touched by the often perverse wisdom of man!

The Roseicrucians were everywhere, aided by the fact that they didn't exist.

I suspect that there is no serious scholar who doesn’t like to watch television. I’m just the only one who confesses.