Siri Hustvedt
American novelist, essayist, poet
I would have articulated aloud the comments I too often suppressed out of deference to arrogant, condescending, sexist bores.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
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.
Going through a divorce.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 January 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 210 →
Alison Moyet
English singer
I’d have made more of my education.
Felicity Jones
British actress
I wouldn’t change anything. Life is what it is, you just have to get on with it.
Tracey Ullman
British and American actress
I would have stopped making records after They Don’t Know.
More from Helen George
View profile →When I was young, I was pretty reckless – my 20s were quite hedonistic. I don’t know whether I’ve been close to death, but I may have been without realising.
A grandfather clock for my partner’s birthday.
To let things go.
As a child playing in my parents’ garden in Birmingham, which they still have, and where my daughters play, swinging on my swing that my dad made for me.
Waitressing. I was so bad. I smashed things. I once mistakenly ordered a very expensive bottle of wine for a table. They thought they were ordering a very average bottle of wine, and I ordered them an £800 bottle and they drank it. I got the sack a few weeks later.
To still be working.
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