JN
The world doesn’t consist of bad and good people; it consists of people seeing things in a different way.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 April 2026 source ↗
The question
What lesson has mattered most in your life?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
View all 138 →That further lessons await.
Every single morning the sun comes up and you get to try again.
Frank Cottrell-Boyce
British screenwriter, novelist and actor
That it’s impossible to persuade other people of the value of the lessons that life has taught you.
Terry Pratchett
Novelist
It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases – one was Alzheimer's and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer's. There were times when I thought I'd have been much happier not knowing, just accepting that I'd lost brain cells and one day they'd probably grow back or whatever. It is better to know, though, and better for it to be known, because it has got people talking, which I rather think was what I had in mind.
Recorded
Written for the Alzheimer's Society in 2008; reprinted by the Observer in the week of his death, The Guardian, 2008
source ↗
More from Jo Nesbø
View profile →Exultation, fear, quiet comfort and even hate.
I wanted to play for Tottenham.
When Molde won the Norwegian premier league in 2011, the year the club was 100 years old.
I worked on a trawler and I was seasick the whole time.
Rock climbing in Oslo. During abseiling, I hadn’t tied a knot at the end of the rope and almost slid out. I saw the end of the rope at the last second, so I stopped abseiling.
Tottenham this season.
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- What worries you about getting older? 61 answers
- What counsel has proved most valuable to you? 28 answers
- If you could put a message on a giant billboard, what would it say and why? 25 answers
- What line from a parent, teacher, or mentor do you still repeat to yourself? 23 answers
Also answered this
Maurice Sendak, Tony Judt, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Christopher Hitchens, Pauline McLynn, Jack Whitehall
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- All time & hindsight questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject