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What's really interesting about that is that a lot of these words that were incendiary in their time now seem almost harmless and laughable, because they have this archaic quality.

I could list hundreds of words I've come up against in the course of my work that did not exist in the era of which I was writing and for which I never could find a suitably old-time, archaic or obsolete substitute.

Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.

At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.

Words have a longevity that I do not have.

I find it difficult to believe that words have no meaning in themselves, hard as I try. Habits of a lifetime are not lightly thrown aside.

Whenever I use an uncommon word, I try to indicate its meaning within the text.

I think that words are often extraneous to what I do.

You know, funny is this weird word for me. I hear is so many times it has no meaning anymore.

I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.