- Laurel Stevens: Look, what have you got against me, anyway?
- Mike Valla: I don't like phonies.
- Laurel Stevens: So what's phony?
- Mike Valla: You! Big man expert, phony act, phony everything.
- Laurel Stevens: This just happens to be a legitimate article. People pay good money to look at it.
- Mike Valla: [Scoffing] "Look." When I was a kid there was a little weasel who ran a candy store on Coney Island. Sundays and holidays he'd put a big sign in the window, "Free Bubble Gum." Only, the store was always closed. Next day the price went right up out of the market. I never got enough of hating that guy.
- Laurel Stevens: Maybe you just never got enough bubble gum?
- Bertha: You know your trouble? Underneath that iron glove of yours is a little old iron fist.
- Laurel Stevens: Oh, sure, when they were pushing *me* around it was just good business. Just let me start dishing out a little action and I'm "tough and temperamental."
- Bertha: They say...
- Laurel Stevens: Let 'em say. I'm just a simple business girl. I sell a funny, phony little commodity called sex. And if the customer is hungry enough to buy it, I run my own factory, in my own way.
- Mike Valla: [Laurel, seeing a phone, thinks maybe she can use it to call for help] There's a lock on the phone.
- Laurel Stevens: Pretty smart, aren't ya'?
- Mike Valla: No, you're just kinda' dumb.