Failure & regret

What has been your biggest disappointment?

373 answers answered between 1991 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A

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The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

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Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 2 Arts and letters 312 Politics and public life 25 Business and finance 11 Technology 1 Sport 21
Read by age Any age Before thirty 16 In their thirties 58 In their forties 82 In their fifties 81 In their sixties 73 Seventy and beyond 54
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Camille Paglia American feminist academic and critic
The shocking decline of artistic quality in Hollywood movies over the past 15 years.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 April 2008 source ↗
Ranulph Fiennes English explorer
An angina attack 300 metres below the summit ridge of Everest in 2005, having spent 72 days getting that far.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 May 2008 source ↗
Vince Cable British politician
The failure of my party to make the big political breakthrough it deserves.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 April 2009 source ↗
Nora Ephron Journalist, essayist, screenwriter and film director
The movies I made that didn't work.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 September 2009 source ↗
Ted Danson American actor
That I could not play college basketball due to lack of talent.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 April 2010 source ↗
Robin Gibb British singer
The way some of the music industry is being run now. Music is being treated as one big karaoke machine.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 July 2010 source ↗
Tommy Hilfiger American fashion designer
My first business, People's Place, went bankrupt in the mid-70s.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 December 2011 source ↗
Brenda Blethyn British actress
I was really disappointed not to be auditioned for Pride & Prejudice, but then they changed their minds and I got the part of Mrs Bennet.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 April 2012 source ↗
Isabella Rossellini Italian and American actress
That my children never met my parents. They were both dead by the time I became a mamma.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 December 2012 source ↗

1 answer from members

Not being able to start my own company

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