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.
Always sleep on any decision.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 August 2025 source ↗
It's family, and it's faith, and it's friends. I would tell them that. Don't forget that. In your brilliance, don't turn your back on your friends. Don't think you're entitled to something because you're smarter than the next guy.
To be humble is to be sane.
You’ve got to keep trying because you don’t know what amazing things are round the corner. Also, always be grateful – at one point you wished to be where you are today.
If it scares you, do it.
When I was 17 I didn’t visit my gran for six weeks as I was out partying. At the end of that summer she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I never saw the real her again. I would love to say sorry to her as I loved her so much.
A radio journalist or on the till at Marks & Spencer.
I constantly forget people’s names when they have literally just told me.
So many different types. When I first met my husband, electric and vital. When I first held my boys in my arms, an overwhelming flood of defiant protection and magic.
It’s already happened – HRT.
Kind, loyal and (slightly) mad.
Gregory Porter, Jack Whitehall, Rory Stewart, Frank Bowling, Marcus Brigstocke, Stockard Channing
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