Following up on a tidbit the subject dangles before you can also yield fine quotes. In a Playboy interview, Howard Cosell referred to Curt Gowdy as "the best play-by-play announcer in the business," then added, "Don't ask me who I think is the best color man in the business."

"Howard, who do think is the best color man in the business?" asked the interviewer.

"Thank you for not asking me," said Cosell. "I really believe I'm the best, for I have sought to bring to the American people a sense of the athlete as a human being and not as a piece of cereal-box Mythology. My relationship with the men who play the game - all games - is probably unparalleled in this country, and I bring information about them to the public."

One of the most potent follow-up questions is a non-question: the Sympathetic Noise. "You feel very strongly about that, don't you?" "Sounds like you had a tough time of it, cleaning barrooms." On its face, the Sympathetic Noise may seem to do little but stall the subject until the interviewer can think up a real question. Actually, it takes account of the fact that subjects, like human beings at large, are cautious soul-bearers; they are reluctant to confess until they have proof positive that their interviewer is sympathetic. (Then they are all too willing.) The Sympathetic Noise - which is often simply reinforcement, or a gentle rephrasing of what the subject has just said - can unlatch a torrent of anecdotes and naked quotes.

William J. Lederer (coauthor of The Ugly American) recalls the time he told his interviewer, Frank Ensign, of "some little thing I had done."

Ensign lifted his eyes with surprise. "Honest?" he said enthusiastically. "Did you do that? Gee, that's wonderful."

Says Lederer: "I thought, here's a guy who understands my problems. I shot off my mouth for two hours, telling him things I never planned to tell him."