HC
A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
The question
How would you describe what love feels like to you?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this exact standing prompt.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
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Simone Biles
United States artistic gymnast
When you put others before yourself, and you’d do anything for them.
Ann Patchett
American author
Pulling yourself out of a wild ocean and on to a life raft.
Jodie Whittaker
English actress
A tumble dryer.
Jo Nesbø
Norwegian writer and musician
Exultation, fear, quiet comfort and even hate.
More from Harlan Coben
View profile →I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.
I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
With a wistful smile.
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.”
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.
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.
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Also answered this
Julie Andrews, Adam Kay, Ian McEwan, Ann Patchett, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Jo Nesbø
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