"...a shock of banality occurs to many people in my condition ~ that is, people who possess a fairly sizable library (large enough in my case that someone entering our house can't help but notice it;  actually, it takes up the whole place).  The visitor enters and says, 'What a lot of books!  Have you read them all?'  At first I thought that the question characterized only people who had scant familiarity with books, people accustomed to seeing a couple of shelves with five paperback mysteries and a children's encyclopedia bought in installments.  But experience has taught me that the same words can be uttered also by people above suspicion.  It could be said that they are still people who consider a bookshelf as a mere storage place for already read books and do not think of the library as a working tool.  But there is more to it than that.  I believe that, confronted by a vast array of books, anyone will be seized by the anguish of learning and will inevitable lapse into asking the question that expresses his torment and his remorse."

~ Umberto Eco, author, professor of semiotics, University of Bologna. [two essays, 1994]
Source:  A Passion for BOOKS, edited by H. Rabinowitz & R. Kaplan.  1999.  Three Rivers Press/Randomhouse.
[Tomorrow:  Eco's answer to "Have you read them all?"