National identity is the last bastion of the dispossessed. But the meaning of identity is now based on hatred, on hatred for those who are not the same.
Umberto EcoEvery time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because a novel is like a child. It takes two years after its birth. You have to take care of it. It starts walking, and then speaking.
Umberto EcoHomer's work hits again and again on the topos of the inexpressible. People will always do that.
Umberto EcoWhen all the archetypes burst out shamelessly, we plumb the depths of Homeric profundity. Two clichรฉs make us laugh but a hundred clichรฉs moves us because we sense dimly that the clichรฉs are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion. . . . Just as the extreme of pain meets sensual pleasure, and the extreme of perversion borders on mystical energy, so too the extreme of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the Sublime.
Umberto Eco