Joshua Ferris
American author
My failure to come to grips with all these disappointments.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The 2019 general election.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 March 2020 source ↗
Others on this question
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Mandy Patinkin
American actor and singer
Citizens around the world blaming others for their personal disappointments, othering them, labelling them, terrorising them with hate-filled rhetoric and shutting the doors of their hearts.
My A-level results in 1998. I flunked my history A-level and lost my place at Cambridge. It broke my heart for years; now I’m really glad, because I pull out the whole “I went to a polytechnic” thing. But at the time for a teenager who was rather pleased with herself, it was absolutely devastating.
Patrick Stewart
Actor
Gregory Peck not mentioning me when he won best supporting actor at the Golden Globes for Father Mapple in Moby-Dick. I played Ahab.
More from Francesca Martinez
View profile →My relationship.
A never-ending hug.
My all-girls’ high school. I hated it. Large groups of teenage girls aren’t known for their empathy and kindness. It was a shock to realise that people viewed me as uncool because of the way my body worked.
I don’t own a property. The carpet in our flat; it’s not fancy or anything.
As the woman who never died.
I’ve liked all my jobs, amazingly.
More on failure & regret
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- Which moment embarrassed you most? 124 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 79 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 40 answers
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