“Rigel, Betelgeuse, and Orion. There was no finer church, no finer choir, than the stars speaking in silence to the many consumptives silently condemned, a legion upon the dark rooftops. The wind came down from the north like a runner in lacrosse, violent and hard, to batter every living thing. They were there, each one alone in conversation with the stars, mining ephemeral love from cold and distant light.”

“A cold wind was blowing from the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things.”

“Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing upon each other.”

“All men have the stars," he answered, "but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travellers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all the stars are silent. You--you alone--will have the stars as no one else has them--”

“There was a sky somewhere above the tops of the buildings, with stars and a moon and all the things there are in a sky, but they were content to think of the distant street lights as planets and stars. If the lights prevented you from seeing the heavens, then preform a little magic and change reality to fit the need. The street lights were now planets and stars and moon. ”

“Speak you too,speak as the last,say out your say.Speak-But don’t split off No from Yes.Give your say this meaning too:Give it the shadow.Give it shadow enough,Give it as muchAs you know is spread round you fromMidnight to midday and midnight.Look around:See how things all come alive-By death! Alive!Speaks true who speaks shadow.But now the place shrinks, where you stand:Where now, shadow-stripped, where?Climb. Grope upwards.Thinner you grow, less knowable, finer!Finer: a threadThe star wants to descend on:So as to swim down beliow, down hereWhere it sees itself shimmer:in the swellOf wandering words.”