Since I don’t tell anybody what I’m doing, it occurs to me now that I lived in my own world for nearly a decade.
Umberto Eco

Since I don’t tell anybody what I’m doing, it occurs to me now that I lived in my own world for nearly a decade.
I don’t believe one writes for oneself. I think that writing is an act of love—you write in order to give something to someone else. To communicate something. To have other people share your feelings.
An illiterate person who dies, let us say at my age, has lived one life, whereas I have lived the lives of Napoleon, Caesar, d’Artagnan. So I always encourage young people to read books, because it’s an ideal way to develop a great memory and a ravenous multiple personality. And then at the end of your life you have lived countless lives, which is a fabulous privilege.