You reach a certain point in life and suddenly know a lot of dead people, and I’ve noticed you don’t stop getting to know people who are dead. Those relationships continue and I like that.
What happens when we die?
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
Which book are you ashamed not to have read?
Taste & recommendation
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
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What is your greatest fear?
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Relationships
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring late-stage question in The Guardian Q&A, with materially different answers on publisher-hosted pages.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I don’t know, and I’m completely OK with not knowing.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 January 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
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Diana Athill
Editor and memoirist
The contributor to the programme I remember with the most pleasure is the man who said that not existing for thousands and thousands of years before his birth had never worried him for a moment, so why should going back into non-existence at this death cause him dismay? Everyone laughed when he said that and so did I, and as I laughed I thought: “Dead right!”
Earthly life is merely the infancy of our soul. What comes after physical death is, I imagine, like returning home.
That’s the 64-million-dollar question.
More from Marcus Brigstocke
View profile →The internet going down – but not just for me, for everyone.
Absolutely none. I’ve had three run-ups at Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and I conclude it must be boring because I’ve never finished it.
To be here in this one moment.
It used to be loneliness, and it might still be.
Every morning when I go into our three-year-old’s room. He’s so happy to see you, it’s a moment of heaven.
Like becoming warm after you’ve been cold.
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Marina Abramović, Marcus Mumford, Meghann Fahy, Bear Grylls, Katie Melua, Layton Williams
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