How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"It's different here. I been lotsa joints, lotsa wards [...]. What's here…there's more scared, more mad […]—but it's because of the maybe. It's because of the little, little maybe [...]. Everyone was afraid of the hope, the little, little Maybe […]. (13.53)
The other patients in D ward understand the "little maybe" Lucia talks about here. It's the hope of maybe one day getting well and being part of the world. Hope is tricky: it can keep you going, but if, like Deborah, you've been stuck between worlds for a long time and don't know how to interact like a healthy person, hope can be scary. It means you have to give up all you know, and change.
Quote #5
"Can you tell us what we may hope for?"
"If you want to hope for a college diploma and a box of dance invitations and pressed roses and a nice clean-cut young man from a fine family—I don't know. This is what most parents hope for [...]. Part of our work together is to find out and come to terms with what she really does want." (14.2-3)
Jacob asks Dr. Fried what he can hope for in Deborah's recovery, and Dr. Fried responds as Deborah's champion. She knows that Deborah has absorbed what her parents want for her, but she says Deborah will have to figure out her own hopes and dreams for her future.
Quote #6
Deborah appraised her in the light of the myth which she and Carla had made. Doris was very thin and she had graying hair, but even exhausted and dizzy with sedatives, there was an abundant sense of life thrumming through her. In whatever manner she had taken the world for this long, it had not been on her knees. (17.15)
Doris Rivera is a symbol of hope to the patients of D ward because she went out into the world beyond the hospital. When Doris is readmitted, the event squashes the patients' hopes of being successful at the whole real world thing. Deborah, however, also sees the event as evidence that change is a process that allows for setbacks along the way.