The reporter wrote with the hope that he would get a by-line in the Times, a testimony to his being alive on that day and all the tomorrows of microfilm

People go to restaurants for so many different reasons. To court a girl, to make some deal. Maybe to talk to some lawyer about how to get an alimony settlement better than they got last week.

Sports is about people who lose and lose and lose. They lose games; then they lose their jobs. It can be very intriguing.

People dress up for funerals. Why not dress up to celebrate that you’re alive?

Wall Street bankers supposedly back the Yankees; Smith College girls approve of them. God, Brooks Brothers, and United States Steel are believed to be solidly in the Yankees' corner... The efficiently triumphant Yankee maching is a great institution, but, as they say, who can fall in love with U.S. Steel?

Most journalists are restless voyeurs who see the warts on the world, the imperfections in people and places. . . . gloom is their game, the spectacle their passion, normality their nemesis.

It's true what they say - all the good men are married. But it's marriage that makes them good.