An accident you're in? It marks you on the outside, maybe. Scars your face or your skin-breaks bones, crushes skulls, leaves the body changed. An accident witnessed? You're different on the inside. Maybe there's no cut someone else can see, by there are always injuries on the inside. Those take a long time to heal.

— Carol Lynch Williams

Do you believe in Jesus? Jesse looks at me so brown-eyed it hurts. He nods." I do," he says. I sit up." I think you look like him.

— Carol Lynch Williams

I've become a kissing addict. I think that's it. The buzzy feeling. Burning lips. The foggy eyes. Maybe I could kiss every good-looking guy here at school. Maybe even the good-looking male teachers. The thought warms me and troubles me at the same time.

— Carol Lynch Williams

Lacey-girl, books take you anywhere. Any place you want to go. You remember that always.

— Carol Lynch Williams

Tell me,' I said. 'Tell me when you notice me.' I notice you going into church,' Joshua said. 'I notice your hair, how blond it is. But how in some light it looks like it has read in it. I notice the way you smell when we're close. And the way you walk when we're headed home from church and your family gets out of the Temple first. I notice how you are with your family and how you hold your little sisters. I've seen you stand out on your doorstep and look across the desert. Furthermore, I've watched you walk toward the Compound fence and then on past that. You've been walking for years.

— Carol Lynch Williams