 My job is to look at what politics is doing, not be a politician myself. |
| There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about. |
| People with lots of doubts sometimes find life more oppressive and exhausting than others, but they're more energetic - they aren't robots. |
| Eco sees the intellectual as an organizer of culture, someone who can run a magazine or a museum. An administrator, in fact. I think this is a melancholy situation for an intellectual. |
| No, I'm happy to go on living the life I've chosen. I'm a university teacher and I like my job. |
| In a novel, my feelings and sense of outrage can find a broader means of expression which would be more symbolic and applicable to many European countries. |
| Literature is my life of course, but from an ontological point of view. From an existential point of view, I like being a teacher. |
| The salt of any interesting civilization is mixture. |
| I don't want to promote my own image either. I don't like going on television or mixing in literary circles. |
| I vividly remember the stories my grandfather told me about the carnage of the First World War, which people tend to forget was one of the worst massacres in human history. |
| I claim the right to take a stand once in a while. |
| I don't have any doubts either about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Perhaps some more should be added to the list, but I don't have the slightest doubt about human rights. |
| Doubts are like stains on a shirt. I like shirts with stains, because when I'm given a shirt that's too clean, one that's completely white, I immediately start having doubts. |
