How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"The prisoner pleads guilty to the charge of not having acute something-it is and accepts the verdict of guilty of being nuts in the first degree." (3.45)
Deborah is relieved to be diagnosed as mentally ill, because for so long, she'd been told by her parents and others that nothing was wrong with her and that she was faking it. She knows that she's broken with reality—and that the game of hiding out in the kingdom of Yr has taken a dark turn that has trapped her in her own mind most of the time.
Quote #5
The fact of this mental illness was in the open now, but the disease itself had roots still as deeply hidden as the white core of a volcano whose slopes are camouflaged in wooded green. Somewhere, even under the volcano itself, was the buried seed of will and strength. (3.54)
Even in the depths of mental illness the person is still there, but she might be buried deeply beneath layers of false fronts she puts up to the world. Dr. Fried sees the possibility of a hidden strength underneath all those layers, and she hopes therapy can bring Deborah back to health.
Quote #6
The sick are so afraid of their own uncontrollable power! Somehow they cannot believe that they are only people, holding only human-sized anger! (6.23)
This is what Dr. Fried thinks after seeing Deborah slip away into Yr instead of confronting emotionally difficult truths. She sees the mentally ill as temporarily unable to see their own strength, and she wants to help them find it.