How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Victoria Guzman, for her part, had been categorical with her answer that neither she nor her daughter knew that the men were waiting for Santiago Nasar to kill him. But in the course of her years she admitted that both knew it when he came into the kitchen to have his coffee. They had been told it by a woman who had passed by after five o'clock to beg a bit of milk, and who in addition had revealed the motives and the place where they were waiting. "I didn't warn him because I thought it was drunkards' talk," she told me. Nevertheless, Divina Flor confessed to me on a later visit, after her mother had died, that the latter hadn't said anything to Santiago Nasar because in the depths of her heart she wanted them to kill him. (1.20)
Did you read that right? Not only did Victoria Guzmán lie, but also she lied about lying. Why do you think she did that? After all, everyone knows that she hates Santiago. Victoria Guzmán also isn't the only person who says that she didn't believe the twins were actually going to kill him. Who else do you think is lying about that claim?
Quote #2
She insisted that they go together right away because breakfast was already made. "It was a strange insistence," Cristo Bedoya told me. "So much so that sometimes I've thought that Margot already knew that they were going to kill him and wanted to hide him in your house." (1.35)
Here, Cristo Bedoya is talking about the narrator's sister, Margot. Margot swears that she didn't know anything about the plan to kill Santiago, but Cristo's not so sure. It's kind of obvious that she didn't want Santiago to die, so why would she lie about what she knew? Do you think she's telling the truth? Why do you think the narrator is insistent that she's not lying?
Quote #3
The night he arrived he gave them to understand at the movies that he was a track engineer, and spoke of the urgency for building a railroad into the interior so that we could keep ahead of the river's fickle ways. (2.3)
Notice the words "he gave them to understand." That's a very tricky phrase. Basically the narrator is saying that Bayardo San Román only implied that he was a track engineer. So technically he didn't lie, but just let people think certain things that might be untrue. This is not the only time that Bayardo displays that kind of behavior. What else do you think he's hiding?