How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Granny Tipper's mouth made a straight line. Then she showed all her teeth and went forward.
"You must be Ed. What a lovely surprise." (4.22-23)
Tipper is just as racist as Harris, but she's more willing to put on appearances. After all, appearances are what the Sinclairs do best.
Quote #2
Skin deep brown, hair black and waving. Body wired with energy. Gat seemed spring-loaded […] Ambition and strong coffee. I could have looked at him forever. (4.33)
Cadence can see Gat's intelligence, ambition, and curiosity as soon as she meets him. He's beautiful, of course, but it's his brain that intrigues her.
Quote #3
He was a stranger in our family, even after all those years. (11.19)
How could you be anything but a stranger around the Sinclairs? After all, these are people who have lived on a private island for years and don't even know the names of the people they've hired as help.
Quote #4
"There's nothing Heathcliff can ever do to make these Earnshaws think he's good enough. And he tries. He goes away, educates himself, becomes a gentleman. Still, they think he's an animal." (39.26)
In Wuthering Heights, Catherine says of Heathcliff, "I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches, and every word he says—I love all his looks, and all his actions, and him entirely, and altogether." Kind of sounds like Cadence talking about Gat, no?
Quote #5
If you want to live where people are not afraid of mice, you must give up living in palaces. (40.8)
This is a line from one of Cadence's fairytales, and it's unfortunately true of Gat: For as long as he tries to live on Beechwood, he'll always be an outsider. Harris will always be threatened by his difference.
Quote #6
"But the thing that makes me really messed up is the contradiction: when I'm not hating myself, I feel righteous and victimized. Like the world is so unfair." (52.23)
Even when you're as brilliant as Gat, you can't help internalizing prejudice. Plus, hanging out with Harris Sinclair would probably give you an inferiority complex, even if you were the whitest, blondest person on earth.
Quote #7
"It's like, if he called me Gat, he'd really be saying, How was your school year, Indian boy whose Indian uncle lives in sin with my pure white daughter? Indian boy I caught kissing my precious Cadence?" (64.6)
Refusing to address someone by name is the ultimate insult. It's like saying, "I see you there, but I'm going to pretend you're invisible." Ugh.
Quote #8
"[…] make sure Granddad knows. Tell him it's nothing and tell him it never was anything. Tell him he shouldn't worry about that boy again and then talk to him about Harvard and tennis team and the future you have in front of you." (67.29)
Even if Penny doesn't share Harris's racism, she wants to share his money, and that greed makes her betray her own child.
Quote #9
What if we could stop being
different colors, different backgrounds, and just be in love
What if we could force everyone to change? (71.33-35)
You can't change someone's thoughts and beliefs by force, and trying to do so almost always has disastrous consequences. (See 1984.) Cadence's heart is in the right place, but her actions cost her the people she loves the most.