We Were Liars Quote Analysis

SPOILER WARNING!                                                                                                         By: Julia Smith

“I cry because I am the only one of us still alive. Because I will have to go through life without the Liars. Because they will have to go through whatever awaits them, without me” (Lockhart 213).

We Were Liars is narrated by the main character Cadence. Every summer her family goes to Beechwood, a small island that her grandfather owns. Cadence’s cousins Johnny and Mirren, along with Johnny’s best friend Gat are known as “the Liars”. They spent every summer together until the summer they were fifteen when they burned down a house on their island as a protest against their family disputes. Johnny, Mirren, and Gat died in the fire as they did not plan their escape properly, while Cadence survived but had an accident that resulted in some memory loss. Two years later, the summer that Cadence is seventeen she returns to Beechwood and spends the summer with the ghosts of Johnny, Mirren, and Gat. She finally pieces together the truth at the end of the book and remembers their deaths.

This quote is arguably one of the most significant in the book We Were Liars. While I did begin to realize the truth in the 12 pages leading up to this quote, it was these lines that set everything into place for me. This quote was before Cadence confronted the Liars, and everything was rushing back to her. I had still been piecing together the plot of this story trying to understand what happened and what this meant for the Liars. If they were dead, then who has Cadence been with all summer? Is this a dream? It was not until they left Cadence for me to fully process their deaths, but looking back, this was where Cadence processed everything. Not only that they were dead, not even that it was her fault, but that they were gone. Cadence realized that every memory, every summer, every year, every important date that she had hoped to spend with them, she would now be alone for. This quote came after Cadence remembering everything that they had aspired to do. She remembered that Johnny “wanted to run a marathon”, and Mirren “wanted to see the Congo”, and that Gat “wanted to stop evil” (Lockhart 210, 211, 212). She realized everything she had taken away from them, and everything she would have to do without them.

Why do their deaths matter so much to Cadence? Her entire family will miss the three of them, what gives her the spotlight? The answer is simple: the pain that Cadence faced is unimaginable. Even if she had never set a fire, never had an accident, and knew from the start of the summer that the Liars were dead, she would have mourned their deaths. She would have grieved the loss of her two closest friends and the friend for which she had fallen in love. She would have thought about them every day, every summer, of every year. It would have taken forever for her to even come to terms with the fact that they were gone. Unfortunately for Cadence, this scenario was not even the case. In addition to sorrow from losing the Liars, she also had to live with her knowledge that she set the fire they perished in. She also was not given the luxury of even remembering that she set the fire. To combine these guilts, she spent her summer believing that she was with the Liars, only to discover that she was the very cause of their deaths. While Cadence blames herself simply for surviving, she could not help but think that she “shouldn’t have soaked the kitchen first. I shouldn’t have lit the fire in the study. How stupid to wet the books so thoroughly. Anyone might have predicted how they would burn. Anyone” (Lockhart 208). Her thoughts of “Maybe, maybe. If only, if only” reminds her of the guilt she feels for losing the people closest to her (Lockhart 208).

The deaths of the Liars also not only caused Cadence guilt, but also deep sorrow. At the beginning of the book when Cadence is convincing her parents to let her go to Beechwood she says: 

“I want to see Mirren and lie in the sun, planning our futures. I want to argue with Johnny and go snorkeling and make ice cream. I want to build bonfires on the shore of the tiny beach. I want to pile in the hammock on the Clairmont porch and be the Liars once again, if it’s possible” (Lockhart 50, 51). 

Cadence expresses her desire to see the Liars even after her accident on Beechwood. In them, she found peace when everything else seemed chaotic. At Beechwood, the “rest of the universe seems nothing but an unpleasant dream” (Lockhart 38). Cadence loved Mirren, Johnny, and Gat. Not only were they the people she had loved her whole life, but they were the people she wanted to escape to. When she felt even worse than she ever had before, she assumed that she would find happiness at Beechwood. When she went through life with the Liars, everything seemed okay. She realized that the reason they came during the summer in the book was because she “needed them” (Lockhart 214). This hole that the Liars filled in Cadence’s happiness gives the quote on page 213 significance. When she needed them most, even after death they found a way to be with her. The only problem is that now she is on her own. 

Finally, this quote has a massive impact on the book because she is now the only one alive and the only one to have the opportunity to live the life she wanted for Mirren, Johnny, and Gat. On page 208 she says “I wanted so much for us: a life free of constriction and prejudice. A life free to love and be loved. And here, I have killed them” (Lockhart 208). In this moment Cadence is remembering the life she wanted for all four of them. She then realizes not only that she has taken this life away from them, but in the quote on 213, she realizes she will have to find this happiness alone. To make matters worse, Cadence had a glimpse of the life she wished for with the Liars:

“The four of us Liars, we have always been. We always will be. No matter what happens as we go     to college, grow old, build lives for ourselves; no matter if Gat and I are together or not. No matter        where we go, we will always be able to line up on the roof of Cuddledown and gaze at the sea. This          island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever” (Lockhart 122).

For a brief moment she lived the life she had wanted with the Liars. She felt nothing but happiness and hopefulness for the future. This joy that she found in the Liars was taken away by the truth, because Cadence is “the only one of us still alive” (Lockhart 213).

    

                                                             Works Cited

Lockhart, E. We Were Liars. New York, Delacorte Press, 13 May 2014.

Carlino, Angela. Goodreads, 13 May 2014, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18339662-we-were-liars. Accessed 26 January 2023.

- Julia Smith