Once you reach your fifties, you have to stop being interested in the present and write only on Elizabethan poets.
Umberto EcoSometimes you say things with a smile with the precise intention of making it clear that you are not being serious, and are only kidding. If I salute a friend with a smile and say, "How are you, you old scoundrel!" clearly I don't really mean he's a scoundrel.
Umberto EcoI wrote a novel because I had a yen to do it. I believe this is sufficient reason to set out to tell a story.
Umberto Eco