The salt of any interesting civilization is mixture.

I prefer insomnia to anaesthesia.

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.

It's the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection.

I live quietly at home among my family and friends.

But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.

People with lots of doubts sometimes find life more oppressive and exhausting than others, but they're more energetic - they aren't robots.

But I don't think I have any particular talent for prediction, because when you have three or four elements in hand, you don't have to be a genius to reach certain conclusions.

There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about.

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.

Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.

It was awful, he cried, awful, awful!Still, the sun was hot. Still, one got over things. Still, life had a way of adding day to day.

In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Even if I don't have the money to take vocal lessons, I'll practice in the house by myself singing out loud.

The year you win an Oscar is the fastest year in a Hollywood actor's life. Twelve months later they ask, 'Who won the Oscar last year?'

I never had disagreements with [Adolf Hitler], I never saw him in an unpleasant frame of mind.

Take and chance and don't ever look back. Never have regrets, just lessons learned.

When is the Democratic Party going to apologize for being the biggest slave-holding-supporting institution on the planet and sticking with racism for the century after the abolition of slavery?

My social status in the last year has gone from zero to hero.

Give blood, but you may find that blood is not enough.

The agriculture we seek will act like an ecosystem, feature material recycling and run on the contemporary sunlight of our star.