What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

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.

Recorded Maurice Sendak said elsewhere, not written here
Yes. I'm not unhappy about becoming old. I'm not unhappy about what must be. It makes me cry only when I see my friends go before me and life is emptied. I don't believe in an afterlife, but I still fully expect to see my brother again. ... But, you know, there's something I'm finding out as I'm aging that I am in love with the world. And I look right now, as we speak together, out my window in my studio and I see my trees and my beautiful, beautiful maples that are hundreds of years old, they're beautiful. And you see I can see how beautiful they are. I can take time to see how beautiful they are. It is a blessing to get old. It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music.

Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗

Others on this question

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Jo Nesbø Norwegian writer and musician
The world doesn’t consist of bad and good people; it consists of people seeing things in a different way.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 April 2026 source ↗
Albie Sachs Anti-apartheid lawyer; Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
But there’s nothing like that quality of leading a decent, dignified life, meeting up with other people who have similar ideals, expressing kindness and love and curiosity and challenging and argument and the excitement of ideas. Ideas can be marvelous.
Recorded Interview, Cape Town, South Africa, American Academy of Achievement, 3 July 2009 source ↗

More from Maurice Sendak

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Question What would you say to somebody you love if you knew it was your last chance to say it — and have you said it? Death & what remains
You are the only person I have ever dealt with in terms of being interviewed or talking to who brings this out in me. There's something very unique and special in you, which I so trust. ... And almost certainly, I'll go before you go, so I won't have to miss you. ... I wish you all good things. Live your life, live your life, live your life.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗
Question Are you afraid of death? Death & what remains
Yes. Of course. And since I don't believe in another world, in another life, that this is it. And when they die they are out of my life. They're gone forever. Blank. Blank. Blank. And I am not afraid of death. And I begin to - as maybe a good many elderly people do. Who knows? When I did "Bumble-ardy" I was so intensely aware of death. Eugene, my friend and my partner, was dying here in the house while I did "Bumble-ardy." And I did "Bumble-ardy" to save myself. I did not want to die with him. I wanted to live, as any human being does.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗
Question What are you still hoping to finish? Death & what remains
Oh God, there are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. ... And I don't know whether I'll do another book or not. I might. It doesn't matter. I'm a happy old man. But I will cry my way all the way to the grave.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗
Question What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? Failure & regret
Look, life is pretty dreadful most of the time. Even in the country that's so pretty with the flowers and leaves and sunshine. And I was abandoned when he died! I'm alone. I feel like an old bubba. And I'm not kind all of the time, I'm not nice all the time.
Recorded Emma Brockes, The Observer, at his home in Connecticut — his last Guardian interview, The Guardian, 2 October 2011 source ↗

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