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.
We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
To know thyself, as Shakespeare said.
Choose your friends wisely.
If it scares you, do it.
To be led by love and not judgment.
I was followed by a mob of fans when I was doing a photoshoot in Paris. When I signed autographs for them during a break, one remarked: “Who the fuck is Harlan Coben? I told you it wasn’t Bruce Willis.”
With a wistful smile.
I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.
I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.
A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.
Pauline McLynn, Jack Whitehall, Maurice Sendak, Tony Judt, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Jo Nesbø
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