my tin kettle

"As if the fullness of the soul did not sometimes overflow in the emptiest of metaphors, since no one can ever give the exact measure of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sorrows; and since human speech is like a cracked tin kettle on which we hammer out tunes to make the bears dance, when we long to move the stars." --Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary