“In the wind, the trees, like agitated lions preparing to roar, shook their great green manes.”

“A short-order cook, just off work, makes easy tracking for lions and worse”

“Death was driving an emerald-green Lexus.”

“Hope wasn't a cottage industry; it was neither a product that she could manufacture like needlepoint samplers nor a substance she could secrete, in her cautious solitude, like a maple tree producing the essence of syrup. Hope was to be found in other people, by reaching out, by taking risks, by opening her fortress heart.”

“In Monterey, at the small airport rental agency, he hired a vomit-green Ford Tempo. It was an offense to his refined sense of color. The Tempo's tempo was satisfyingly allegro on flat roads but a bit adagio on the hills.”

“There were two types of survivors in life: those, like her, who found the requisite strength in having once been loved with great intensity; and those who, having not been loved, learned to thrive on hatred, suspicion, and the meager rewards of revenge.”

“Another plum, another plum, another plum for me! Jocko shakes the cyber tree! Ah ha-ha-ha, Ah ha-ha-ha!”