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

“The wild mustard in Southern California is like that spoken of in the New Testament. . . . Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold is in the pocket.”

“For everything there is a season. I'd miss having the seasons, people from New York like to say by way of indicating the extraordinary pride they take in not living in Southern California. In fact Southern California does have seasons (it has for example "fire season" or "the season when the fire comes," and it also has the season when the rains comes, but such Southern California seasons, arriving as they do so theatrically as to seem strokes of random fate, do not inexorably suggest the passage of time. Those other seasons, the ones so prized on the East Coast, do. Seasons in Southern California suggest violence, but not necessarily death.Seasons in New York-the relentless dropping of the leaves, the steady darkening of the days, the blue nights themselves-suggest only death.”

“California is a fine place to live, if you happen to be an orange.”

“Southern California is the land of crazy crimes.”

“an amaranthine valley of orange groves”