“constellations hanging overhead in the rafters of the universe”

“should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about rafters?”

“He was hanging from one of the rafters in a laundry up near Frau Diller's. Another human pendulum. Another clock, stopped.”

“A tree there towere Tall and branching That house upholding The hall's wonder Its leaves their hangings Its limbs rafters Its mighty bole In the midst standing.”

“The universe is full of men going through the same motions in the same surroundings, but carrying within themselves, and projecting around them, universes as mutually remote as the constellations.”

“Through this feeling of helplessness suddenly burst a piercing nostalgia for the lost world of childhood. The way it came right up against the heart, that world, and against the face. No indoors or outdoors, only everything touching us, and the grown-ups lumbering past overhead like constellations.”