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.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Pittsford, New York, writing my first book when our kids were small, riding my bike to work because we only had one car…that feeling of being needed and loved and vitally involved in something artistic that I didn’t fully understand, everything still lying ahead of us.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, January 2023 source ↗
In my 20s, touring small arts centres with my best mate, performing sketch comedy to a handful of people.
Snorkelling for an hour with a comically disciplined and curiously attentive squadron of six, fat Caribbean reef squid off Mexico.
Right where I am now.
At home with my dogs, or on the boat going waterskiing on a beautiful day in Miami. And having a hit song that connects with people.
Read incorrectly, that sounds like a threat. No thanks, Vanity Fair !
I’d like to have a more generous, less anxious mind.
Being aware and accepting of whatever the state of my mind happens to be at the moment (even if that state is unhappy).
Jessica Hynes, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Jonathan Safran Foer, Rose Tremain, Siri Hustvedt, Chris Addison
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