“The day Belisa Crepusculario found out that words fly about loose, with no master, and that anyone with a little cunning can catch them and start a trade. She reflected on her own situation, and realized that, other than becoming a prostitute in a rich man’s kitchen, there were few jobs that she could do. Selling words seemed to her to be a decent alternative. From that moment she worked at that profession and never took on another. At first she offered her wares without suspecting that words could be written in other places than newspapers. When she became aware of this, she worked out the infinite projections of her business, paid a priest 20 pesos to teach her to read and write, and with the three pesos left over from her savings bought herself a dictionary. She perused it from A to Z and then threw it into the sea, because she had no intention of swindling her clients with prepackaged words.”
Isabel Allende “Two Words”
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 