Удивительная, тёплая комедия про жизнь шкодных старичков в доме престарелых. Несмотря на непревзойдённое чувство юмора автора (которая по профессии психиатр), на последних страницах придётся прослезиться. Эту книгу я прочитала пять лет назад, а сегодня захотелось вернуться к ней опять. В этой истории невероятное количество глубоких, мудрых наблюдений & размышлений про жизнь, старение, приоритеты, гуманность, смелость. Оставлю здесь некоторые из них:
«Some faces disappear into old age.»
«I sometimes wonder what the point of me was.»
«Or have I spent the last eighty-four years just sitting in the audience?»
«… Elsie’s father left for the war and returned as a telegram on the mantelpiece.»
«Florence’s mother. It was how she always introduced herself to people, and it made me feel as though by being born, I’d accidentally swallowed up everything else she used to be.»
«… young men were disappeared by the war…»
«Bravery means you have a choice…»
«I don’t think any of these men had a choice.»
«Brave is just a word we use about them to make ourselves feel better.»
«… the crumbs of a person, the leftovers of a life…»
«Who you are, is the difference you make in the world.»
«… we spent the next ten minutes saying how wonderful it all was.»
«The mattress was left wanting.»
«He had a bowler hat and very melodramatic arms. In fact, everything about him was melodramatic.»
«What would you send to make someone know absolutely without doubt it was you who was trying to speak to them?»
«It’s always the small decisions that change a life.»
«Because to be courageous, you must have fear, surely?»
«And it takes courage, I suppose. To die.»
«Some decades weigh more than others.»
«… Simon and his new viewpoint on life had left the room…»
«You can’t define yourself by a single moment.»
«The hardest part of losing anyone is that you still have to live with the same scenery. It’s just that the person you are used to isn’t a part of it anymore, and all you notice are all the gaps where they used to be.»
«Jack used to say planting seeds at his age was an act of optimism.»
«There is so much more to us, Florence, than the worst thing we have ever done.»
Here is the thing... 