Playwright and screenwriter
Every morning, Monday to Friday, I get up at 7am and make my wife breakfast in bed.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2017
One question · 6 of 29 answers to it
What does the first sixty minutes of your day look like?
Co-founder and chief executive of Nubank
Apenas me despierto, a las 5:00 a. m., cuando voy a hacer deporte. Es lo primero que cojo cuando me despierto. No es la mejor práctica, pero sí desde tempranito.
Recorded · Semana · 2022
Author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things
I have two kids, so once we get them off to school, I tool around on email and Facebook longer than I should. Then I shut those things down and get to work.
Recorded · The Great Discontent · 2012
Novelist, essayist and critic
Stay in your mental pyjamas all day. […] Work in the morning, a short break for lunch, work in the afternoon and then watch the six o’clock news and then go back to work until bed-time.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2010
Songwriter, musician and novelist
As many of you know, I observe specific protocols to open the creative mind – I sit at a desk in my office and write, working exclusively between 9am and 5pm.
Recorded · The Red Hand Files · 2024
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979–1990; Leader of the Conservative Party 1975–1990; MP for Finchley 1959–1992
I'm not up at 6 am. I start listening to the incoming news at 6 am. I'm not up until 7. By then I've heard the agricultural news, the news and financial news and listening to radio.
Recorded · Margaret Thatcher Foundation, from Thatcher MSS (Churchill Archive Centre) · 1989
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955; Member of Parliament 1900–1964
You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done.
Recorded · International Churchill Society · 1941
Novelist and critic
If you get stuck, get away from your desk.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2010
Spanish professional tennis player, 2001–2024
Sometimes when I'm in the first round or second round, and I'm not playing well, I say, okay, just accept it. Don't get frustrated. Just accept and focus.
Recorded · CBS News / 60 Minutes · 2020
What small daily thing do you do that most people would consider a waste of time?
Composer, pianist and record producer
It’s wasting time to listen to music when you go outside because there are so many interesting noises. For example, every time it rains, I open the window and put the recorder outside.
Recorded · Kinfolk · 2018
Kenyan marathon runner
When you become a boss, you don't think straight. It's better to be a leader than a boss. That is why I do my share of the cleaning. That is how to show the way to young people.
Recorded · BBC Sport · 2020
Broadcaster; host of Larry King Live on CNN, 1985–2010
I have a habit of – thought habits. I try to total up words in a phrase or a sentence and then divide it to see if I get an even number. Like true love divided by two is four.
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2018
What is the worst advice you received that you followed anyway?
Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want
The worst advice was to start a record label when I wanted to be a musician. It was smart advice. It could have made me more money, but it did not inspire me.
Recorded · Escape 9 to 5 · 2025
Novelist and screenwriter; author of The School for Good and Evil
This professor was obviously on the jury, and I wanted to stay the faculty’s blessed son, and so I trusted external validation at this point in my life more than my own creative compass.
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2018
Atmospheric chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1995
I did. As a kid, I liked music. I still like it a lot of course. I used to play the violin. I did contemplate, well, maybe that’s an option. I could become a musician.
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 2014
People, by what they do
- Science and medicine 105
- Arts and letters 1211
- Politics and public life 132
- Business and finance 70
- Technology 47
- Sport 109
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Questions, by subject
- Identity & self 14
- Values & belief 13
- Change of mind 1
- Failure & regret 9
- Craft & work 36
- Money & investment 4
- Taste & recommendation 6
- Relationships 5
- Time & hindsight 8
- Death & what remains 13
- Daily life 9
- Attention & the world 8
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Some of the people here · A–Z
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Answers that stay at one address
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
- People
- 1,679
- Answers
- 8,273
- Questions
- 126
- First said
- 1910–2026
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.