How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
She knew that none of the workers liked her. People never had. On the ward a large girl had asked her to play tennis and the shock had sounded down to the last level of Yr. (3.4)
Deborah is so accustomed to her version of reality, in which she believes no one likes her, that even those in her imaginary world are shocked that someone extends a sign of friendship to her. There is obviously a difference between how others perceive Deborah and how she thinks they do. Haven't we all experienced this kind of paranoia? Haven't we all thought, at some point, that people were laughing at us?
Quote #2
There was a groan from Lactamaeon, the black god, and a derisive laugh from the Collect, which were the massed images of all the teachers and relatives and schoolmates standing eternally in secret judgement and giving their endless curses. (3.10)
Deb has internalized the negative things kids who bullied her when she was young said about her. She's also internalized some things she's heard her parents say about her. These experience have have scarred her so much that she assumes everyone thinks bad things about her, even when they first meet her.
Deborah's desperate to impress people, but she's also terrified of what they think of her. The voices of the Great Collect seem to represent these fears the most: they yell out the taunts she's heard before. Deborah says she's clumsy, lazy, wayward, unfriendly. These are obviously words she's heard others, possibly even her parents, say about her.
Quote #3
The color life had been set and only the despair could deepen. She was always off by herself sketching they had said, but she never let anyone see the pictures. (Ch.9.14)
Deborah doesn't see the role she played in isolating herself here. One day, some pictures fell out of her sketchbook, and the kids at school were trying to figure out who the drawings belonged to. Deborah was so afraid of rejection that she acted like the pictures weren't hers. Then she became angry that the kids were making her "repudiate" her art, when in reality, they probably admired it. Deborah's perception of reality is one in which she is hated—but that's not always the case.