Nothing. It’s too risky. What if you eliminated a misjudged situation from your life and it turned out that one of your children wasn’t born, or you failed to meet your partner?
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 February 2016 source ↗
The question
If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.
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Others on this question
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Ronnie O'Sullivan
English snooker player
I would go back to when I was 14 and keep to my own style of playing snooker. I was perfect, but I didn’t think I was, so I started playing like everybody else and created bad habits. With a little more time, I could have been the ultimate player. I look at my career and I probably got 75% out of it instead of 100%.
David Hasselhoff
American actor, singer, and television personality
My drinking habits.
I’d have gone solo sooner.
Harriet Walter
English actress
I would never have gone on a diet. I would go back with the knowledge that not being perfect is fine.
More from Bill Bryson
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When the Guardian called me a scaremonger for wanting to preserve London’s green belt.
Angela Merkel; she seems wise, compassionate, curiously huggable.
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