“A village girl who never had been to high school but was completely self-taught, my mother read the manuscripts and proofs of all my German books and articles and acted, as she loved to say, as the "people's voice" and thus taught me to write with non-specialist readers in mind. But she also tried to check my tendency to enter too deeply into dreams of mystical love for, being supersensitive herself, she was afraid lest I lose my sobriety and my critical mind.”