A quote I liked

“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.” –Flaubert in Madame Bovary, trans. by F. Steegmuller.

Here’s another take on it from Michael Cunningham in his latest book By Nightfall.

[We are all] “banging on a tub to make a bear dance when we would move the stars to pity.”