Hugh Skinner: If you could edit your past, what would you change?

If you could edit your past, what would you change?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Hugh Skinner said elsewhere, not written here

I’d be happier being myself younger.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 May 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

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Warren Buffett Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025

In particular, my decision to sell McDonald's was a very big mistake. Overall, you would have been better off last year if I had regularly snuck off to the movies during market hours.

Recorded His letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in the 1998 annual report, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., February 1999 source ↗

Suzanne Vega American singer-songwriter

I would have tried to meet Lou Reed backstage. I went to see him for years, and never tried to meet him. Eventually we met at award shows and did become friends.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 September 2017 source ↗

Adam Kay British comedy writer, author, youtuber, comedian and former physician

I could have done without being sexually assaulted, or having an eating disorder, or pushing myself to breaking point, but every chapter of my life brought me here.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 June 2023 source ↗

Oliver Sacks Neurologist and writer

The peace of the Sabbath, of a stopped world, a time outside time, was palpable, infused everything, and I found myself drenched with a wistfulness, something akin to nostalgia, wondering what if: What if A and B and C had been different? What sort of person might I have been? What sort of a life might I have lived?

Recorded The New York Times, Sunday Review, 14 August 2015 source ↗