“Beauty is, in some way, boring. Even if its concept changes through the ages… a beautiful object must always follow certain rules. A beautiful nose shouldn’t be longer than that or shorter than that, on the contrary, an ugly nose can be as long as the one of Pinocchio, or as big as the trunk of an elephant, or like the beak of an eagle, and so ugliness is unpredictable, and offers an infinite range of possibility. Beauty is finite, ugliness is infinite like God.”
More from Umberto Eco
“How peaceful life would be without love. How safe. How tranquil. And how very dull.”
“For the enemy to be recognized and feared, he has to be in your home or on your doorstep.”
“Daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh; the more you have the more you want, and yet…”
“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when…”