Quote pg 137 "In that moment, everything we had been struggling with for years came into focus. I realized that if Emily didn't learn to communicate and soon, she was next in line to be shot." more of the frank straight forwardness of valerie turning point, emphasized the urgency of emily needing to communicate quote 2 (pg 138) "There were no clear antecedents for Emily's meltdowns because they all expressed her frustration with her inability to communicate. She couldn't tell us what was wrong, and that's what was wrong." very telling about this realization from valerie, and also how emily feels it wasn't things going wrong, the issue was she couldn't share how she felt quote 3 (pg 139) "Her communications skills had to improve and we had to make that happen now" very urgent tone, shows the direness and the character of valerie plowing forward and the determination to find a solution quote 4 (pg 143) "I worried a lot about not being understood, worried and stressed about that, now that my life was always around people who didn't get me, didn't appreciate that I needed to know what was going on" long sentence to express all the pent up emotions, and feels choking and trapping quote 5 (pg 145) "we did a lot of the same things i'd done in other speech therapy sessions and we were not really getting anywhere, but i still gave a lot of effort" emily cared, gives a peak into her head of how aware she is also hard working quote 6 (147) " Hit myself in the head with my left wrist. This is a bad one. It's me wanting to hurt myself for not being normal" awareness, again. she recognizes that it is not good. she also recognizes she's not normal, and she doesn't like it quote 7 (pg 151) "It could happen for her. Kissing the famous stone certainly couldn't hurt. Perhaps Emily could spontaneously receive the gift of speech" shows a different side of valerie- she is usually very sensible and realistic, but it shows the optimism and hope she shows occasionally throughout the book quote 8 (162) "Her joy, her grief, the elated chatters of a young girl, buried, trapped. And in these unspoken words, a storm brews." so powerful. she uses strong diction, with joy, grief, elated. shows the depth of her emotions. buried and trapped shows how stuck she felt. a storm brews alludes to a potential thing in the future. quote 9 (166) "I am powerless. My mind in that moment bellows louder than my voice ever could. If only I would listen to myself" this was really the pinnacle of the emotions and trapped feelings she felt. she hated this feeling, being stuck and not being able to express quote 10 (173) "The questions turned to me and I did something extraordinary. I answered them. Never again will I bury my voice. Never again will I be silent" WOW! this was her reaction to finally being able to share her thoughts. She knows hoe extraordinary this was. This is the strongest thing I've read from emily in the book. She wull NEVER AGAIN be silent, or bury her voice!