How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"It's a quality of myself, a secretion, like sweat. It is the emanation of my Deborah-ness and it is poisonous" [...] the joy of self-loathing had taken Deborah as fully as if it had been love, and she went on and on, decorating and embellishing the foulness, throwing the words higher and higher. (10.27-29)
Deborah wants negative attention because it protects her from possible rejection. It's almost safer to think of yourself as awful, because that way, you never risk being hurt. It's messed up, but this is how Deborah feels.
Quote #5
Deborah feels a slow, fearful gratitude to her family, who had lived with a monster and treated it like a person. (10.48)
Deborah remembers trying to kill Suzy when she was only a baby. Deborah feels tremendous guilt about it, and she feels it's further proof she isn't human. Her version of reality is twisted, thought: her parents never mentioned walking in and seeing Deborah holding Suzy out the window…because this is something Deborah only thought about doing and never acted on.
Quote #6
Then she was standing above herself, dressed in her Yri rank and name, kicking the herself that was on the floor, kicking her low in the stomach and in the tumorous place that gave like a rotten melon. (13.9)
Deborah sees a nurse acting clumsy, fidgeting with keys, and tripping. She reaches out to the nurse, whispers words of comfort to her, and grabs her arm before she falls, but the nurse is freaked out by the contact and leaves the room in a hurry. The incident makes Deborah retreat into Yr, and the self-loathing is so strong that she punishes herself with an out-of-body experience.