How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
She was starting to look like somebody else, like one of techies or the artists or something. Like she didn't relate to the girls she had always hung with anymore. (4.34)
After Ali begins to feel different from her friends as her life at home changes so much, she begins to show it by changing bits and pieces about her appearance. It might be an outcast identity, but it's also something Ali's laying claim to.
Quote #5
A couple of them […] really did have bad skin. And they dressed way different than us. […] All these little differences used to seem so important […]. (5.33)
Not fitting in isn't always about big differences that make it impossible for someone to get along in a group, like having vastly different politics or something. Becoming an outcast can be about tiny, stupid, unimportant things, like the color of someone's shoes or what brand of backpack they have. And Torey was a part of the indiscriminate majority who had no hobby to identify them but gossip.
Quote #6
If I were Greg, I would become like Bo. If I had Bo's life, I would be Bo, Probably worse. (12.3)
In an effort to try to understand how people deal with hardship, Torey comes to the conclusion that hardship and stress lead people to do whatever they can to survive, and this includes lying, stealing, fighting, and acting mean, even if they aren't actually mean.