"To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative — the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from ItalyPhilosophers from ItalyNovelists from ItalyEssayists from ItalySatirists from Italy
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (1994) Chapter Four: "Possible Woods"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Umberto Eco
1932 – 2016
italienischer Literaturwissenschaftler, Schriftsteller und Kunstphilosoph
66 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Umberto Eco →
Related Quotes
"The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is n…"
"We live for books."
"Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and…"
"Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves …"
"A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but wha…"
"That man is … odd," I dared say to William. "He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason h…"
"The sign is usually considered as a correlation between a signifier and a signified (or between expression and conten…"
"There is only one thing that arouses animals more than pleasure, and that is pain. Under torture you are as if under …"
"Temi, Adso, i profeti e coloro disposti a morire per la verità , ché di solito fan morire moltissimo con loro, spesso …"
"The hand of God creates; it does not conceal."