I was struck by the way in which meanings are historically attached to words: it is so accidental, so remote, so twisted. A word is like a schoolgirl's room--a complete mess--so the great thing is to make out a way of seeing it all as ordered, as right, as inferred and following.
William H. Gass, Theodore G. Ammon (2003). “Conversations with William H. Gass”, p.23, Univ. Press of Mississippi