第四節 A Journey Through a Universe of Thoughts
“Could you please stop reading and talk to me？”
My mother was not against reading，but at that time I was attending a boarding school in another city，so when I was at home she wanted to talk。I wanted to read。
My mother owned a store in which she also sold newspapers and magazines。Including comics like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck。That's how I started。I was sitting in her store，reading everything I found from the stories of famous movie stars in the magazines to trashy novels dealing with love and crime。My ability to discriminate was not developed，but reading educated my reading skills and slowly opened a feeling for the many ways we can express ourselves。Because I could read what I wanted，it was fun。
Nevertheless my mother slowly began to support quality instead of quantity。She bought books I would not find in her store：The legends of ancient Greece took me into the world of Greek gods and heroes，the adventurous stories of Bernhard Grzimek，a veterinarian and filmmaker，took me to Africa's endangered wildlife。Later，as my interest in theater began，I turned to classic plays and read Schiller，Goethe，Shakespeare，George Bernhard Shaw，Tennessee Williams and Chekhov，to name a few。But whether it was the old masters or contemporary literature，good storytelling opened the window to different worlds I otherwise would have never entered。
Reading books with diverse storytelling，dialogues and dramaturgy taught me that language is an instrument to master and to play with。It is joyful learning that allows our mind to be creative。We imagine faces and figures，homes and landscapes；we sense happiness and desperation and we transforms letters into scenes，descriptions into pictures and characters。