Realising what I wanted to do as a career – aged about 22.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 November 2009 source ↗
The question
What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
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Realising what I wanted to do as a career – aged about 22.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 November 2009 source ↗
My first week in New York in 1978, when I was about to start as a writer at Time. And my first week in the south of France after retiring from my job of 25 years as editor of Vanity Fair.
Right now. I think I was born in my early 30s and I am finally catching up to my age. It’s fine to be a bit like Frasier now, but it’s probably not ideal when you are 12.
In college, meeting my wife and then having our first child, and marching together to bring down the walls of Jim Crow.
My late 20s, writing my third record.
“You can’t play Maxim de Winter with ginger hair.”
My rational brain doing battle with my emotional brain.
Frequently, especially now with what’s happening in the Middle East.
To still be working.
I’m getting closer all the time.
Treating a flock of sheep for foot rot when I was a farm labourer.
Michael Ball, Mary J Blige, Alison Steadman, Una Stubbs, Burt Reynolds, Sally Phillips
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