It's often occurred to me, she said, that 'friend' is about the most treacherous word in the language. - Richard Yates

Life goes wrong for the Grimes sisters [...] because "they can't help being the people they are" —Yates's explicit vision of tragedy.

You know? he said. This is the kind of thing that really— he paused, examining the wisp of smoke that curled from his wet pipestem. Really makes you stop and think.

And from this distance they all did look like kids - boys and girls from far and wide with their cheap hand luggage and their Army duffel bags, brave entertainers who might travel for years before it occurred to them, or to most of them, that they weren't going anywhere.