constellation quotes

New York is one of the capitals of the world and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic. San Francisco is a lady, Boston has become Urban Renewal, Philadelphia and Baltimore and Washington blink like dull diamonds in the smog of Eastern Megalopolis, and New Orleans is unremarkable past the French Quarter. Detroit is a one- trade town, Pittsburgh has lost its golden triangle. St Louis has become the golden arch of the corporation, and nights in Kansas City close early. The oil depletion allowance makes Houston and Dallas naught but checkerboards for this sort of game. But Chicago is a great American city. Perhaps it is the last of the great American cities.

- Norman Kingsley Mailer
  Miami and the Siege of Chicago,'The Siege of Chicago'.

Wer zeigt ein Kind, so wie es steht? Wer stellt es ins Gestirn und gibt das MaÞ des Abstands ihm in die Hand? Who shows a child as he really is? Who sets him in his constellation and puts the measuring-rod of distance in his hand?

- Rainer Maria Rilke
  Duinieser Elegien, no.4 (translated by Stephen Mitchell in The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke,1989).