 In the scene where Jesse complains about fortune tellers never  telling the truth, he quotes almost exactly from a scene in the book  "The Circus of Dr. Lao" by Charles Finney. In the book the magician  Appollonius of Tyana tells a widow that her next day and the day  after will be exactly the same as the day before, "a tedious  collection of hours". (Page 81, Grey Walls Press edition)