How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Looking back, I don't doubt my mom believed this at the time. I learned later how Whitney had completely reassured her, saying she was just overworked and overtired, and while she had been working out more and eating less because she had found she was a little bigger than the girls she was going up against for jobs, it was by no means to extreme levels. (3.43)
Mrs. Greene cares so much about modeling that she doesn't want to believe that Whitney is sick because it would mean that her promising modeling career would be over. Maybe that's why she swallows Whitney's lies so easily.
Quote #2
But still, my mother didn't go. This was the biggest mystery, the one thing that, looking back, I could never quite figure out. For whatever reason, she chose to believe Whitney. It was a mistake. (3.72)
Whitney may be able to say all the things that their mother wants to hear, but she can't hide the fact that she's physically ill. Their mother is only able to believe her lies because she wants Whitney's career to take off in New York—it's her dream.
Quote #3
Normally I didn't stretch the truth to my mom, but in the last few months I'd learned to forgive myself these little trespasses, because they made her happy. Unlike the real truth, which would be the last thing she wanted to hear. (4.104)
Annabel thinks of her mother as emotionally weak, and so she lies to her to keep her happy. She doesn't want her mother to know the truth because she feels like she wouldn't be able to handle it.
Quote #4
I was digging myself in a hole here, and I knew it. But still, I tried to explain myself. "It's just… I don't always say what I feel." (5.226)
Annabel and Owen couldn't be more different in the ways they express themselves. Owen tells everything like it is, and although Annabel doesn't exactly lie, she doesn't always tell the truth either. She's afraid of hurting other people.
Quote #5
I knew he was talking about modeling. But hearing this, I thought of something else, the one thing I could never admit, the biggest secret of all. The one I could never tell, because if the tiniest bit of light was shed upon it, I'd never be able to shut it away again. (7.138)
It's scary to think that if Annabel lets just one thing out, all her secrets will come tumbling out afterward. And how will she ever live with the fact that people know what happened to her?
Quote #6
The little white lies I told on a daily basis, the things I kept in, each time I was not totally honest—I was aware of every one now. I was also cognizant of how good it felt to actually be able to say what I thought to someone. (9.71)
Being around Owen makes Annabel aware of all the little lies that she tells—even if she's not entirely ready to share the truth yet. It also helps her to notice when she's lying to herself, which is the worst kind of lie of all.
Quote #7
I wanted to tell her, right then, that this wasn't true. That I was far from the girl who had everything; that I wasn't even that girl in the pictures, if I ever had been. No one's life was really like that, one glorious moment after another, especially mine. (11.52)
Modeling feels like a kind of lie to Annabel. Her Kopf's commercial makes it seem like she has this glossy privileged life, but that's not the truth at all—no one's life is that idealized.
Quote #8
Even though it had pretty much dominated our family dynamic for almost a year, I'd never heard Whitney acknowledge her problem out loud. Like so much else, it was known but not discussed, present but not officially accounted for. (12.35)
Whitney's been lying to herself by refusing to acknowledge that she has a problem, which keeps her from really healing. When she does admit to it though, she starts to slowly get better.
Quote #9
"Sophie," I said. I was almost whispering now. "It wasn't what you think." (13.181)
Sophie isn't interested in hearing the truth or changing her mind. This becomes increasingly clear when she rejects Emily's accusation that Will Cash raped her and, instead of standing by her friends, she just continues to believe the lies that Will feeds to her.
Quote #10
'Then what are you like, Annabel?" he shot back. "A liar, like you told me that first day? Come on. That was the biggest lie of all." (18.61)
Annabel thinks that she's a liar, but she's not—she just keeps things bottled up and refuses to let them out. It's only when she is able to let everything out that she can tell Owen (and the rest of the world) the whole truth, though.