The Whispers Quotes

“She’d once heard them described as the whispers—the moments that are trying to tell you something isn’t right here.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“She’d once heard them described as the whispers—the moments that are trying to tell you something isn’t right here. The problem is that some women aren’t listening to what their lives are trying to tell them. They don’t hear the whispers until they’re looking back with hindsight. Feeling blindsided. Desperate to see the truth for what it is.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“It hadn’t felt sacrificial at the time. Devoting herself to motherhood and the domesticity that came with it had made her happy, at first. And Chloe does make Blair happy. Immeasurably. It is everything else that has happened along with Chloe, the changes in herself and her worth and her marriage that happened so slowly they were imperceptible. Where she’d once felt motherhood had given her so much more than she’d had before, now she could only see it as having taken everything away. Now she cannot reconcile the love she has for her daughter with how confined she feels by the privilege of being her mother.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“There is no value in simply being busy—everyone these days is busy. There is value in focus. In the satisfaction of control and the productivity of lucrative work.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“She understood in that moment something about him that she had not wanted to be true. But there are risks people take when they want something badly enough.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“She feels insane. Or is this a whisper, speaking to her?”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“a child is forever changed by the way they’re treated.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“She feels embarrassed all of a sudden, like they can smell her loneliness.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“Marriage isn’t about love; it’s about choices.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“But this is the thing about miscarriage. It is not an event, something that once happened and has ended. Miscarriage goes on and on, follows a woman through her days and her dreams, and then she will have blissful split seconds when she forgets, when her brain can still feel the gratification of having that baby, until she remembers the baby is not hers anymore, and hasn’t been for days or even weeks.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“Has Aiden ever noticed that? The way they all just seem to float? That they are fed and cared for and have shampoo in their shower, and salt in their shaker, and gifts on the morning of their birthdays? That they have antinausea tablets placed in the palms of their hands the second the motion sickness hits? That is her doing. Her unseen value. That is worth more than the sixteen-fucking-fifty an hour Jane pays her.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“I only wanted to tell you that no matter how bad things get right now, you’ll find the resolve to keep going, in ways you won’t expect. Something’ll land right there for you to find, just when you need it,”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“she daydreamed about who she could be without us weighing her down like a brick. It’s not easy for everyone. Even if you think it’s what you wanted.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“there is skepticism in Chloe’s small face. She knows. And Blair has just told her that she is wrong. That her intuition isn’t valid, not when it’s uncomfortable. No, darling, we pretend. This is how the life of a woman looks.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“She says this number to herself over and over, so she doesn’t forget: 3,680 days. How many times has she felt the weight of him on her, on her hip, in her arms, on her back? 3,680 days. How many times has she told him she loves him? This number feels important. Tombstones should be etched with total number of days lived instead of dates, she thinks; the dates mean nothing.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“She’d replied with something she’s never said aloud before: “There’s nothing in the world I want more than a child.” The words had felt exposing. There’d been no hiding the desperation in her voice. But she’d wanted Whitney to know that she’d still choose to be a mother, even if she knew it would end this way, in an ICU bed.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“Everything can be explained if she wants it to be. Everything can scream at her if she lets it.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“Love is based on an idea about who the other person is, and she isn’t wholly that idea anymore.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“There is security, at least, in the constant state of disappointment. There is less threat for her there.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“His cruelty was covert. People are rarely who they seem. But sometimes it’s the good ones who do the very worst things.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“His heartbreak felt cruel and undeserved, but she’d always known there’d been love, somewhere deep under near the cruelty.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“The ease with which he threatens the control she thrives on is unsettling.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“Too much going on and yet nothing going on at all, creating urgency where there is none, rushing their lives away. They don’t know how to just be.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“For every mom hanging on by a thread. And for those trying desperately to be on.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“These mundane responsibilities do not end. Some days these mundane responsibilities are all she has.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“She shakes her head, but she does want one. His pleasantness irritates her. The ease of his days irritates her too. She would feel better, she thinks, if he worked harder for them. If he worked as hard as she works in her role, the thinking, the accommodating, the planning, the doing, the thinking again. She wants his head to spin at night with the things he must do the next day so that their lives are smooth, so that they float.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“something”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“might have come from heaven.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“knowing that he had mattered.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers

“All the whispers she so masterfully ignores,”
― Ashley Audrain, The Whispers