Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you'll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.
The more you experience positive emotions, the more open you become. The more open you are, the more you see. The more you see, the more you can do. The more you can do, the more you can grow.