Jim included the following passage from The Wicked Pavilion (1954) by Dawn Powell in one of his letters to me:

Sloane, so it seemed to him now, had never had to make a decision before in his life. There were always two paths, and if you stood long enough at the crossroads, one of them proved impassable. There were always two women, but one of them wouldn’t have you or one of them kidnapped you. There were always two careers, but at the crucial moment one of them dropped out, something happened, somebody made an appointment, and there you were. For Dalzell Sloane, destiny had shaped itself only through his hesitation…There were people, and Dalzell was one of them, who were born café people, claustrophobes unable to endure a definite place or plan. The café was a sort of union station where they might loiter, missing trains and boats as they liked, postponing the final decision to go any place or do anything until there was no longer any need for decision. One came here because one couldn’t decide where to dine, whom to telephone, what to do…One might be lonely, frustrated, or heartbroken, but at least one wasn’t sewed up.