This paper considers asymptotic stability and transient performance of discrete-time piecewise affine systems. We propose a procedure to construct a nested sequence of finite-state symbolic models, each of which abstracts the original piecewise affine system and leads to linear matrix inequalities for guaranteed stability and performance levels. This sequence is in the order of decreasing conservatism, and hence gives us the option to pay more computational cost and analyze a finer symbolic model within the sequence in return for less conservative results. Moreover, in the special case where this sequence is finite, an exact analysis of stability and performance is achieved via semidefinite programming.