“Industry, the "enigmatic municipality, [that] sprawls across the map of the San Gabriel Valley like an underfed dragon”

“[Preston] Hotchkis had earned his position by representing San Marino, a tiny, rich, Anglo municipality south of Pasadena that had been tellingly named after a European micro-kingdom.”

“A descendent of Basque ranchers, the mayor came from the small circle of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century European immigrants who had been his father's oldest customers and friends. Perhaps Malburg told Jim the story of how Vernon got its start in 1905, when John Baptiste Leonis, a French Basque hog rancher, persuaded the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads to extend tracks to his city to attract new factories, their preferred freight-hauling customers.”

“It’s not that easy,” said the merchant. “The words are there, but they like to hide from the sun. I can’t say I blame them for doing so, for the sun is such a bother, lighting up everything, revealing everything. Some things need keeping in the dark. This book knows much about that.”

“You’ve been nothing but scared since you first entered this forest,” said Wend as she put down the last of the leaves on the trap. “And when you saw me, you turned white as a ghost.”“That’s not because I’m scared,” said Jeskun, taking Dahkar and hiding him behind some trees. “I just--never saw anyone like you.”“You’ve never seen a girl?”“No, not that,” said Jeskun, frustrated.“I’ve just never--you have green hair and eyes and green lashes and green freckles. It’s all green, like the trees. I’ve never seen that.”“And you have yellow hair,” said Wend, inspecting her blade, not impressed with his reasoning. “This world is full of many colors.”

“Il possédait comme tout le monde sa terminaison en "iste", sans laquelle personne n'aurait pu vivre en ce temps-là, mais il n'était ni royaliste, ni bonapartiste, ni chartiste, ni orléaniste, ni anarchiste; il était bouquiniste.”

“The path that we are all called to travel is never the easiest path,” said Vohro as he strode up to the boy. “If ever you find yourself strolling down the road of life, know that you are truly lost.”-R. Janvier del Valle, The Abandoned Asylum of the Good Doctor Fangtasahd”