“an amaranthine valley of orange groves”

“To own an orange grove in Southern California is to live on the real gold coast of American agriculture.”

“A party in the orange grove. The pain on Linden's face is immediate. I am unwavering. He has cost me more pain than I will ever be able to repay.”

“Here where all the trees grow in rows; the palms stand stiffly by the roadsides, and in the groves the orange trees line in military rows, and endlessly bear fruit. Beautiful, yes; there is always beauty in order, in rows of growing things! But it is the beauty of captivity.”

“This must be the taste of Language—the tongue mapped by many colors,parsed by the vowels of memory, the roofof the mouth the dome of a worldcircumscribed by consonants, whose edgessuggest the sour-sweetness of oranges,the bittermelon’s green rind, the river-scent of mangoes all the way to the grove.”

“His beard was all colors, a grove of trees in autumn, deep brown and fire-orange and wine-red, an untrimmed tangle across the lower half of his face. His cheeks were apple-red. He looked like a friend; like someone you had known all your life.”