How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I wouldn't hurt them physically or emotionally, how then can people so consistently do it to me? Even my parents treat me like I'm stupid and inferior and ever short. I guess I'll never measure up to anyone's expectations. I surely don't measure up to what I'd like to be. (2.1)
Do you think Alice's parents really think she's stupid and inferior? Or do you think the fact that Alice hasn't lived up to her own expectations is coloring her perception of her self-image?
Quote #2
I haven't written for about a week because nothing of interest has happened. The same old dumb teachers teaching the same old dumb subjects in the same old dumb school. I seem to be losing interest in everything. (5.2)
One of the main symptoms of depression is the inability to enjoy things that used to bring you pleasure. We'd say that based on this entry, Alice falls solidly in the "too depressed to function" category.
Quote #3
I don't know why she can't let me live my own life. She doesn't like it when I look like a cow, neither does anybody else, I don't even like myself. (14.2)
It's really not a good sign when you can't even like yourself. Alice is experimenting with anorexia because it's a way she can assert some semblance of control over a life where she feels powerless. Unfortunately, her dissatisfaction with herself leads to much worse things than a bout of extreme dieting.
Quote #4
Already he's met a boy down the street his own age and I should be happy for him, but I'm not—I'm sad for myself. […] For me, as usual, nothing! A big fat nothing, and probably just what I deserve. (22.2)
It's okay to throw a pity party every now and then—it can be pretty cathartic to wallow in your own terribleness until you have to laugh at how maudlin and absurd you're being. The problem is that Alice never reaches that catharsis. She is stuck in woe-is-me mode and that's a dangerous place to be.
Quote #5
It's amazing, because during school I really longed for the time to stay in bed and just loaf, loaf, loaf and read, read, read and watch Tely and do the things I want to do, but now I've run out of things. Oh, sheer agony. (42.2)
Can Alice ever be happy? She finally gets what she wants… and it's not good enough. Unfortunately, we've all been there—the grass is always greener, as the saying goes—but to quote someone from roughly the same era: Only boring people are bored.
Quote #6
Actually I don't need the sleep as much as I need the escape. It's a wonderful way to escape. I think I can't stand it and then I just take a pill and wait for sweet nothingness to take over. At this stage in my life nothingness is a lot better than somethingness. (63.1)
Things must be pretty bad if nothingness is better than somethingness, but how bad does she really have it? If only Alice could have some perspective—you know, without having to go through an overdose, massive mental breakdown, and subsequent hospitalization.
Quote #7
Anyway I seem to be doing less and less right, I'm getting so that no matter what I do I can't please the Establishment. (68.2)
This is a pretty common teenage sentiment, if you ask us. It's mostly due to the expectations parents have for their children (because Establishment = Parental Units), and the necessary acts of rebellion kids go through during puberty. Heck, we remember the first time we snuck down to the clubhouse carrying a watermelon and saw a new form of dancing… wait… that wasn't us. Carry on.
Quote #8
I'm lonely, I'm heartbroken, I hate this whole number and everything it stands for, I feel I'm wasting my life away. I want to go back to my family and my school. I don't want to just sit listening to other kids who can go home for Christmas and who can write and phone when I can't and why can't I? I probably haven't done anything that these kids haven't done. All dopers are part-time sewer dwellers, the two go hand in hand together. (113.1)
Alice is never satisfied. She hates being a lame-o with her family, so she runs away. But now that she's living the hippie dream, she's envious of the square kids who have families to spend the holidays with. Pick your poison, Alice.
Quote #9
I haven't any clothes except these I had on when I left home and I'm getting so damned dirty I think they've grown on me. It was snowing in Denver, but it's so penetratingly damp here in Oregon it's a hell of a sight worse. I've got a f***ing head cold and I feel miserable, and my period has started and I don't have any Tampax. Hell, I wish I had a shot (154)
This kind of misery is what happens when you run away from home with only twenty bucks and the clothes on your back. We're kind of confused as to what she thought would happen.
Quote #10
When I look around here at all the ass draggers, I really think that we are a bunch of gutless wonders. We get pissed off when someone tells us what to do, but we don't know what to do unless some fat bastard tells us. Let somebody else think for us and do for us and act for us. Let them build the roads and the cars and the houses, run the lights and the gas and the water and the sewers. We'll just sit here on our blistered tails with our minds exploding and our hands out. God, I sound like a goddamn Establishmentarian, and I haven't even got a pill to take the taste out of my mouth or drive the bull s*** thoughts away. (166.4)
Man, Alice just cannot find her happy place, can she? She's finally living her dream, and then she realizes that it's not all that great to just sit around being high all the time.