Time softens a person. Like the mountains at home. The older peaks are not as jagged. Time wears on them, rounds them.

When I read, I get so lost in the story, I forget where I am. Bucharest just melts away and I’m transported someplace else. I forget the time of day, sometimes even the year or the century. This may sound crazy, but I get myself all mixed up with the characters, like the story is actually happening to me.

A rainy day and a good book in a hidden room. What could be a more perfect way to spend a free afternoon?

When trust died, the country became mute.

She burrowed beneath the covers in Romania in 1987, but soon she was whisked to Britain in the 1940s, transported through an enchanted wardrobe into the snowy and timeless world of Narnia. The wardrobe led her away from her boring engineering-student life and opened a wide vista, filled with adventure. Filled with possibilities. She could never go back to how things were before. Her world had shifted forever.

Good, because writers and artists are the backbone of our country. Don’t forget who we are. . . There’s a poet in the soul of every Romanian. Stories are not the enemy.