Paul Theroux: What disappointment has stayed with you longest?

The question

Originally asked

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

This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.

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

Paul Theroux

American travel writer and novelist

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Political leadership generally.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 May 2013 source ↗

Others on this question

Terence Conran British restaurateur and designer

Merging my company with BHS – it was a great mistake.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 August 2016 source ↗

My wife and I were meant to meet Frank Sinatra before he went on stage in Hamburg. But there was a taxi-drivers’ strike and we were too late.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 January 2024 source ↗

Grace Coddington Welsh former model and creative director

That one doesn’t stay agile all your life.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 September 2015 source ↗

Sally Hawkins British actress

Realising that I wasn't a fairy changeling child and that David Bowie wasn't the fairy king.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 July 2011 source ↗

The Buddhist monk Tapa Snim I met in Burma in 2007, all of whose earthly possessions he carried in a small bundle slung on one shoulder.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 May 2013 source ↗

The death of my father in May 1995.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 May 2013 source ↗

Search the directory for somebody in particular.