After Cleo Quotes

“Then there was the realisation that I didn't actually feel that much better when I was thin(ner). In fact the 'thin' version felt worse because I lived with hunger clawing at my stomach all the time, and in fear that I was going to get fat again. After years of neuroticism I'd finally understood those who loved me would continue to put up with me fat or thin, and those who didn't ignored me. As a middle-aged woman I was pretty much invisible anyway. To pass unnoticed through an image-obsessed society is surprisingly liberating.”
― Helen Brown, After Cleo

“In the back of the fridge I checked out some stewed apples destined to fester. I examined them closely and reckoned they had only a day to go, even by my standards. I spooned the apples into tiny bowls, tossed in some dried fruit and sprinkled them with crumble topping. Delicious, they said that night, scraping the bowls so clean they hardly needed to go in the dishwasher. The fools.”
― Helen Brown, After Cleo

“My stroppy, strong-willed daughter who’d only ever called me Helen had finally called me Mum.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“I’d been a fool for misjudging the man so badly. He’d had our family’s interests at heart all along.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“still hadn’t found the right moment to ask about Lydia’s long-term plan.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“fear-obsessed person I thought I’d become had given way to the life-loving adventurer I used to be.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“people leave Buddhism because they realize they’re just sitting there observing life, not living”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“According to the Googlers, the cramps got worse with time.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“Over the following days, Jonah became a quieter, more amiable cat. The spraying stopped almost immediately.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“a painting by van Gogh in which he’d portrayed olive trees as wise, silvery beings. Like the painter himself, these olive trees were no strangers to suffering, but van Gogh depicted them as tough and shimmering with vitality.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“Instead I went home, cleaned out the kitchen cupboards, and thought about making a garden. A Gratitude Garden.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“Breast cancer isn’t choosy.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“It was easier to be brave about breast cancer two years earlier when I didn’t know what I was pretending to be brave about.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“Sam, I was surprised to find a tiny part of me believed, despite all the evidence, I’d live forever.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“Alcohol intensifies its effects in hot weather—a fact some guests seemed aware”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“I felt safely tucked in . . . and, surprisingly, almost glamorous.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“It took a while to adjust to having no feeling at all in my fake breast, and very little in the left uplifted one. I’d learned to check my upper chest was covered before going out in freezing weather.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“And he took the adage of cats never coming when called to an extreme. Whenever anyone mentioned his name, he sprinted in the opposite direction.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“It was the raucous rough and tumble Philip had missed out on since Rob had left home. Man and cat made quite a pair.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“Cleo had arrived when our family was torn apart by tragedy. I wondered if Jonah might play a similarly vital role, taking our minds off cancer and focusing us on the future.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“I’m a fully paid-up apostrophe bore.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“I’d rather hoped to hang on to it. A permanent catheter would simplify plane trips and visits to the theater no end. And now I had to hobble, bent double like a hag in an old fairy story, to the loo.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“It’s easy to develop strange attachments to people when your survival depends on them.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“She asked me to make a list of household tasks and stick it on the fridge for Philip and Katharine to work through. She suggested I write a list of friends who could be relied on to bring a meal to the house once a week while I was recovering.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“All we need now is a cat,” said Katharine one day, pausing between chapters. I smiled back at her. Katharine sometimes has the ability to read my mind. A kitten curled up on the blanket would have completed the picture, all right. An affectionate fur ball”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“She said, like me, her aunt had also had a vasectomy.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“Someone who could make me laugh.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“felt like a creature in a wildlife program caught between the jaws of a powerful predator, its teeth sinking into my neck.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“They’d all been felled by the disease that strikes one in eight women.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called

“I’d learned to love the Australian landscape with its giant skies and ancient, crumpled hills. The red earth and silver trees that had once seemed ugly and foreign now possessed unique beauty for me.”
― Helen Brown, Cats & Daughters:: They Don't Always Come When Called