I am proud of my anti-library. Are you?

"Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library."

― John Waters, America Filmmaker

I saw this quote today and it confused me. "How could a library of unread books be a good thing?" I said to myself. Maybe I was missing something. Maybe there was an underlying message that I was not understanding. So I did some research and this is what I found.

It seems that this is an incorrect quote. The correct quotation is:
"Nothing is more impotent than an unread library."
John Waters, Role Models, 2010

Note that the quote says "impotent" and not "important". Waters was making the point that you have to read the books too.

My goal was not to find fault in the quote. My goal was to find meaning. And I found something even more enlightening. Something that gave me a better appreciation for the stacks of un-read books in my library.

From the Farnam Street blog:
"My library serves as a visual reminder of what I don’t know."
"...knowledge is a treasure..."
"...a private library is not an ego-boosting appendages but a research tool."

I am proud of my anti-library. Are you?