How do you analyze a quote?

How do I analyze a quote?

• Whenever I'm supposed to write an essay for my english class i end up paraphrasing the quotes and getting a B. I really want an A but I don't know how. When I look at a quote all I see is the obvious. Then my teacher explains it like "kings" means they are strong forces and "encamp" means they are not going anywhere soon and I'm just left there thinking "how did he get that?" Can you just make stuff up as long as it makes sense? Even if you could do that I don't know how. I still just see the plain text and what other people explain to me. Am I just shallow?

• Answer:

  You aren't shallow, you do pretty much have to make things up. The best way to analyze is by believing that the author picked each word very specifically, so when they say king, as you said, think about what a king is and what being a king means and how that relates to a character. That should get your grade up, and on the bright side, when you do deep analyzation like that it definitely gives your paper a lot of length.