Jay McInerney: When were you happiest?

When were you happiest?

Originally asked

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

Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Jay McInerney said elsewhere, not written here

When my mother let me stay home from school even though I wasn't ill.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 June 2009 source ↗

Others on this question

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Martin Sheen American actor

1 May 1981 in Paris, because that’s the day I was reconverted to Catholicism.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 March 2017 source ↗

Winston Churchill Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955; Member of Parliament 1900–1964

But the years 1895 to 1900 which are the staple of this story exceed in vividness, variety and exertion anything I have known—except of course the opening months of the Great War. When I look back upon them I cannot but return my sincere thanks to the high gods for the gift of existence. All the days were good and each day better than the other. Ups and downs, risks and journeys, but always the sense of motion, and the illusion of hope.

Recorded Chapter of his autobiography, written at Chartwell in 1930, Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life (Thornton Butterworth, 1930), Project Gutenberg Canada, October 1930 source ↗

Gregg Wallace English broadcaster and writer