The question
If you could revise one chapter of 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.
I’d be happier being myself younger.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 May 2026 source ↗
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.
I made too much money in my 30s, and it distorted my writing and made me less hungry. Then, in my 40s, I spent all the money on daily life – and now I don’t have it.
I was a very lazy child, but I think I’ve made up for it by being a workaholic. I might push some of the work back to my childhood.
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.
I’m not interested.
I think we’re definitely gone, but I do think people leave traces everywhere from what they did in life, and live on and continue to make an impact through the ripple effect of that.
People singing in the street.
In the back of my mind I just assumed I’d be in a boyband at some point.
Accidentally walking on to set naked for a scene where I wasn’t actually supposed to be naked.
Catastrophising.
Isabel Allende, Katie Melua, Keir Starmer, Andy Roddick, Marie Kondo, Guy Pearce
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