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.
You can only do one thing at a time.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 September 2025 source ↗
You’re going to come up against brick walls in life. You’ve got to go over them, under them, around them, or crash through them, but somehow or other you’ve got to get to the other side.
Redemption. People can be redeemed, goals can be redeemed.
Showing up is at least 90% of it.
Trust my instincts.
I spent about five years living in Paris thinking I would become Kristin Scott Thomas, and it didn’t happen.
Someone said that I had a laugh like Jimmy Carr.
Last year, during four days in January, when I directed Rhoda, my second short film, in a tiny house in Camberwell with Juliet Stevenson and Emma D’Arcy.
My partner was doing a play in Hong Kong last year and I went to visit him, and I bought him a beautiful teacup. But I didn’t look at the price tag before I took it to the till and it was £100, the most expensive teacup imaginable.
I would try and get to being comfortable with myself quicker.
My failed driving test a few months ago. I got three majors and by the end of it the examiner couldn’t wait to get out of the car.
Philippa Dunne, Chaka Khan, Guz Khan, Stockard Channing, Monica Dolan, Justin Hawkins
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