"There looms, within abjection, one of those violent, dark revolts of being, directed against a threat that seems to emanate from an exorbitant outside or inside, ejected beyond the scope of the possible, the tolerable, the thinkable. It lies there, quite close, but it cannot be assimilated. It beseeches, worries, and fascinates desire, which, nevertheless, does not let itself be seduced." (1)

"If, on account of that Other, a space becomes demarcated, separating the abject from what will be a subject and its objects, it is because a repression that one might call "primal" has been effected prior to the springing forth of the ego, of its objects and representations." (11)

"Metaphor of want as such, phobia bears the marks of the frailty of the subject's signifying system." (35)

"This abjection, which threatens the ego and results from the dual confrontation in which the uncertainties of primary narcissism reside—is...