Daily life

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?

206 answers answered between 1932 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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Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 1 Arts and letters 179 Politics and public life 12 Business and finance 5 Sport 9
Read by age Any age Before thirty 8 In their thirties 34 In their forties 38 In their fifties 53 In their sixties 41 Seventy and beyond 29
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Ram Dass Spiritual teacher and author
This is why I could speak the way I did yesterday. In California, the stroke is incredible grace because it gives me a prescription to buy pot. ... Pot takes away the pain and frees me from spasticity. ... The marijuana gives me soul perspective. It makes the stroke livable.
Recorded Sara Davidson, The New York Times Magazine, at the Hyatt Regency, San Francisco, 21 May 2000 source ↗
Christopher Hitchens Essayist, critic and journalist
My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends. I can’t eat or drink for pleasure anymore, so when they offer to come it’s only for the blessed chance to talk. Some of these comrades can easily fill a hall with paying customers avid to hear them: they are talkers with whom it’s a privilege just to keep up. Now at least I can do the listening for free. Can they come and see me? Yes, but only in a way. So now every day I go to a waiting room, and watch the awful news from Japan on cable TV (often closed-captioned, just to torture myself) and wait impatiently for a high dose of protons to be fired into my body at two-thirds the speed of light. What do I hope for? If not a cure, then a remission. And what do I want back? In the most beautiful apposition of two of the simplest words in our language: the freedom of speech.
Recorded Vanity Fair, 9 May 2011 source ↗
Louis Walsh Irish music manager and television personality
More exercise. Maybe I should join a gym, but I’ve never been to one.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 September 2017 source ↗
Jenny Agutter English actress
Finding a cure for cystic fibrosis – it would change the life of my niece.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 January 2018 source ↗
Sandi Toksvig Danish and British broadcaster, comedian and writer
My life won’t have full quality until we achieve equality for all.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 March 2018 source ↗
John Malkovich American actor
If one could shut off the modern world and all the information that flows, not necessarily into your brain but at your face, and doesn’t benefit anything or make one better informed.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 March 2018 source ↗
Monty Don English horticulturist, broadcaster, and writer
Getting my 21-year-old knees back.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 May 2018 source ↗
Toyah Willcox English singer-songwriter, actress and television presenter
Everyone comes to me for advice, and I wish they didn’t. I negotiate fees for other artists, give advice on property, on food, on clothes, on pensions. I can be standing on a corner in another country and someone will approach me for help.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 April 2019 source ↗
Gloria Estefan Cuban-American singer and songwriter
My life is wonderful – I can’t ask for one more thing.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 June 2019 source ↗

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