Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.
—David Lehman (b. 1948)
But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master—something that at times strangely wills and works for itself.... If the result be attractive, the World will praise you, who little deserve praise; if it be repulsive, the same World will blame you, who almost as little deserve blame.
—Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855)