Then they came out, Finney wearing the foolish smile you sometimes see in the crowds that gape at street… — Richard Yates

Then she asked me if I wanted to know something, and without waiting to find out whether I did or not, she told me.

Being told he was right was always a tonic to Ken

But late that night, as Irving Berlin himself might say, something kind of wonderful happened. I took that little bastard of a story and I built the hell out of it.