Roger McGough: What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

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 Roger McGough said elsewhere, not written here

That it will go on quite happily without me.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 January 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

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Clare Bailey Mosley

To be inquisitive.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 December 2025 source ↗

Sofia Coppola American filmmaker and actress

To follow your path and not worry about what to do too much; one thing leads to the next, and you wind up where you’re meant to be.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 March 2023 source ↗

Minnie Driver British and American actress

That your life is only in this very second.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 February 2023 source ↗

Terry Pratchett Novelist

It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases – one was Alzheimer's and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer's. There were times when I thought I'd have been much happier not knowing, just accepting that I'd lost brain cells and one day they'd probably grow back or whatever. It is better to know, though, and better for it to be known, because it has got people talking, which I rather think was what I had in mind.

Recorded Written for the Alzheimer's Society in 2008; reprinted by the Observer in the week of his death, The Guardian, 2008 source ↗