How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays Quotes

“American coffee can be a pale solution served at a temperature of 100
degrees centigrade in plastic thermos cups, usually obligatory in railroad
stations for purposes of genocide, whereas coffee made with an American
percolator, such as you find in private houses or in humble luncheonettes,
served with eggs and bacon, is delicious, fragrant, goes down like pure
spring water, and afterwards causes severe palpitations, because one cup
contains more caffeine than four espressos.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“A writer writes for writers, a non-writer writes for his next-door neighbor or for the manager of the local bank branch, and he fears (often mistakenly) that they would not understand or, in any case, would not forgive his boldness.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“To make them forget how bad human beings are, they were taught too insistently that bears are good. Instead of being told honestly what humans are and what bears are.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“Nebulat ergo cogito.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“What is a saint supposed to do, if not convert wolves?”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“But if Mother Theresa went to collect all the prizes she is awarded, the death rate in Calcutta would soar.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“For such is the fate of parody: it must never fear exaggerating. If it strikes home, it will only prefigure something that others will then do without a smile--and without a blush--in steadfast virile seriousness.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“Will we be happier afterwards? Or will be have lost the freshness of those who are privileged to experience art as real life, where we enter after the trumps have been played, and we leave without knowing who's going to win or lose the game?”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“The taxi driver is someone who spends all day driving in city traffic (an activity that provokes either heart attack or delirium), in constant conflict with other human drivers. Consequently, he is nervous and hates every anthropomorphic creature.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
three old owls on a chest of drawers
were screwing
the daughter of the doctor.
But then the mother called them,
colorless green ideas slepp furiously.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“Çocukluk yıllarım boyunca, tanıştığım bütün insanların, kaderin bir oyunu olarak, ahmak olduğuna inanmıştım.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“The mass media first convinced us that the imaginary was real, and now they are convincing us that the real is imaginary; and the more reality the TV screen shows us, the more cinematic our everyday world becomes. Until, as certain philosophers have insisted, we will think that we are alone in the world, and that everything else is the film that God or some evil spirit is projecting before our eyes.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“Vrčevi za kavu koje koriste normalni ljudi - ili one dobre stare kafetijere iz kojih se miomirisno piće izlijevalo
izravno u šalicu- kavi omogućuju izlazak kroz tanku cijev ili kljunčić, a gornji dio raspolaže bilo kakvim zaštitnim uređajem koji ih drži zatvorenima. U Grand Hôtelu i spavaćim kolima kava-bućkuriš stiže, naprotiv, u vrču s izrazito širokim kljunom, kao u pelikana, s krajnje pomičnim poklopcem, tako pomno izrađenim da ~ privučen nezadrživim horror vacui - automatski sklizne prema dolje tek što ste vrč neznatno nagnuli. Ta dva lukava izuma omogućuju ukletom vrču da polovicu kave odmah izlije na croissante i marmeladu te zahvaljujući klizanju poklopca. ostatak proliie po posteljini.”
― Umberto Eco, How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays

“[…] i saggi critici vengono letti e giudicati da altri critici e raramente dall'artista analizzato, che o non è abbonato alla rivista o è già morto da due secoli.”
― Umberto Eco, Come viaggiare con un salmone