The antilibrary

Taleb paraphrasing Umberto Eco:

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

I was trying to quote this bit of wisdom at dinner the other night and drew and utter blank about where I’d heard it. Thanks to Mr Kottke, as usual. (Also: Eco has another pithy quote about the volume of books in his library that I’ve forgotten. Anyone remember?)