“Parker let the letter drop to the floor, an act she often criticized in movies for its melodrama.”

“She slid out from under his arm, and picked up his shirt from the floor. When she put it on, it failed to meet in the middle over her chest. that always worked in the movies, she thought, disgusted, and dropped it on the floor.”

“....He barely hesitated. "Then shall I ruin you, dragon?" "Yes please," she said. And she let the brown dress drop on the floor between them, closing her eyes once more.”

“Parker, I'm old," She said matter-of-factly. "I get away with these things." She continued to wave and smile wildly. "People treat me like an idiot so I'm allowed to act like one from time to time. It's one of the perks.”

“When making his music, he [Elvis Presley] had been the essence of cool, but in his movies he was often a self-parody embarrassing to watch. Colonel Parker, his manager, who had picked movie scrips for him, had served Elvis less well than the monk Rasputin had served Czar Nicholas and Alexandra.”

“There were hundreds of them spread across the floor, each telling its own tale of triumph or sadness, each letter representing a phase in her life. She had kept them all.”