Quote 1
Welcome to the beautiful Sinclair family.
No one is a criminal.
No one is an addict.
No one is a failure. (1.1-4)
True to the title, Cadence starts the book by lying. All the Liars become criminals, Cadence is arguably an addict, her aunts drink constantly, and none of them can finish college or stay married.
Quote 2
That June, summer fifteen, Dad announced he was leaving and departed two days later. He told my mother he wasn't a Sinclair, and couldn't try to be one, any longer. (2.16)
We're with Dad—bail on that Sinclair business while you can. Bummer about sacrificing your kid, though.
Quote 3
Penny, Carrie, and Bess are the daughters of Tipper and Harris Sinclair. Harris came into his money at twenty-one after Harvard and grew the fortune doing business I never bothered to understand. (3.1)
Cadence is largely unaffected and unimpressed by Harris's wealth—except, of course, that her life would be very different without it. Oh hi, private island.
Quote 4
They built three new houses on their craggy private island and gave them each a name: Windemere for Penny, Red Gate for Carrie, and Cuddledown for Bess.
I am the eldest Sinclair grandchild. Heiress to the island, the fortune, and the expectations.
Well, probably. (3.4-6)
Once you know that Cadence planned the destruction of Clairmont, the "probably" makes a lot more sense. Do you think Harris will still leave everything to her? Does what she did change his expectations?
Quote 5
The family calls us four the Liars, and probably we deserve it. We are all nearly the same age, and we all have birthdays in the fall. Most years on the island, we've been trouble. (4.2)
The Liars don't seem like trouble until the end of the book, which makes us wonder if Cadence is lying here, too. Maybe burning down the house is the first time they've actually been trouble, after having to be perfect for so many years.
Quote 6
I understood, and I managed to erase Granny Tipper from conversation, the same way I had erased my father. Not happily, but thoroughly. (11.14)
The Sinclairs are big on denial and façade. It doesn't matter how you leave the family; when you're gone, you're gone.
Quote 7
Welcome, once again, to the beautiful Sinclair family.
We believe in outdoor exercise. We believe that time heals.
We believe, although we will not say so explicitly, in prescription drugs and the cocktail hour. (15.1-3)
Even though the Sinclairs know each other inside and out, Penny still lies to Bess and Carrie about Cadence's medications. Nobody would fault her for taking the addictive stuff, but Penny insists on pretending the non-addictive pills work—so yeah, the Liars aren't the only ones who lie.
Quote 8
Granddad is more like Mummy than like me. He's erased his old life by spending money on a replacement one. (33.16)
Money can't buy happiness, as the saying goes, but that's never stopped people who have it from trying.
Quote 9
Now, at the breakfast table, watching him eat my toast, "Don't take no for an answer" seemed like the attitude of a privileged guy who didn't care who got hurt, so long as his wife had the cute statues she wanted to display in her summerhouses. (42.21)
Granddad tells Cadence not to take no for an answer, but, on his usual huge power trip, denies her even her own toast. He's basically saying, "Don't let anyone tell you no. Oh, you want that breakfast? No. Psych!"
Quote 10
They would repent of their deeds.
And after that, learn to love one another again.
Open their souls. Open their veins. Wipe off their smiles.
Be a family. Stay a family. (68.12-15)
Cadence and the Liars decide that only tragedy, in the form of property destruction, will make the family stop fighting and come together. The problem is, though, they were never really together in the first place, and as long as there's money left, they never will be.
Quote 11
Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound,
then from my eyes,
my ears,
my mouth. (2.19-22)
This is the first instance in the book of Cadence saying something that makes you go, "Wait, what?" It takes a few more paragraphs to figure out she's being metaphorical—but where do her metaphors end and her hallucinations begin?
Quote 12
My head and shoulders melted first, followed by my hips and knees. Before long I was a puddle, soaking into the pretty cotton prints. I drenched the quilt she never finished, rusted the metal parts of her sewing machine. (11.9)
Cadence imagines a form of crying with her whole body in response to her grandmother's death.
Quote 13
I must have had my face in the water and then hit my head on one of these rocks.
Like I said, I don't know.
I remember only this: I plunged down into this ocean,
down to rocky rocky bottom, and
I could see the base of Beechwood Island and
my arms and legs felt numb but my fingers were cold. (12.8-13)
Can you really see the base of an island? Can you sink to the bottom of the ocean? Does Cadence really remember these things?
Quote 14
In Europe […] I lay prone on the bathroom floors of several museums, feeling the cold tile underneath my cheek as my brain liquefied and seeped out my ear, bubbling. Migraines left my blood spreading across unfamiliar hotel sheets, dripping on the floors, oozing into carpets, soaking through leftover croissants and Italian lace cookies. (14.11)
Cadence's description of her headaches, like her other metaphors, involves her body melting into her surroundings. Not to be gross, but the other Liars' bodies quite literally melt into their surroundings when they die.
Quote 15
I made her tell me one last time, and I wrote down her answers so I could look back at them when I wanted to. That's why I can tell you about the night-swimming accident, the rocks, the hypothermia, respiratory difficulty, and the unconfirmed traumatic brain injury. (18.29)
Cadence claims she only remembers the accident due to what her mother told her, but in Chapter 12 she relates seeing the base of the island and feeling the numbness in her body. There's a whole lot of lying—or misremembering—going on here.
Quote 16
I want to know why Gat disappeared. I don't know why he wasn't with me, swimming. I don't know why I went to the tiny beach alone. Why I swam in my underwear and left no clothes on the sand. (19.5)
It's easier for Cadence to believe Gat abandoned her than that he's dead—and it's much easier than believing she killed him.
Quote 17
Sometimes I wonder if reality splits […] Everyone has duplicates of themselves in these other worlds. Different selves with different lives, different luck. (54.65)
Here's where Cadence gets all Matrix on us. Red pill or blue?
Quote 18
Cadence Sinclair Eastman had no memory of the events surrounding the fire, no memory of it ever happening. Her burns healed quickly but she exhibited selective amnesia regarding the events of the previous summer. She persisted in believing she had injured her head while swimming. (80.20)
If Cadence thinks she injured her head while swimming, how does she account for the burns on her hands? Could you wake up in the hospital with your burned hands in bandages and believe you'd suffered a head injury while swimming? Last we checked, water puts out fire…
Quote 19
I took the pen out of his hand—he always read with a pen—and wrote Gat on the back of his left, and Cadence on the back of his right. (5.39)
That's a pretty bold move, and ridiculously romantic. Our hearts are pounding for her. (Also, we've been practicing writing on both our hands—We Were Liars could spawn an ambidextrous generation.)
Quote 20
But we were only fourteen. I had never kissed a boy, though I would kiss a few the next school year, and somehow we didn't label it love. (5.42)
Aha… So Cadence does kiss other boys; it's just that none are Gat. First kisses have a way of branding your brain and your heart, and making subsequent kisses pale in comparison.