Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big, shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate... Anne Carson
About This Quote

You can't really expect to find the meaning of a word by just looking at the dictionary. To find the meaning of a word, you have to go through all the things that have been done with that word. You have to look at its history. You have to look for any similarities between it and other words, both real and fictional. You have to put yourself in someone else's shoes to try to understand what they may be trying to say.

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