Ed Harris: 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 Ed Harris said elsewhere, not written here

Don't let MGM distribute a film you care about.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 August 2007 source ↗

Others on this question

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Steve Jobs Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar

I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing. There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up. I don't blame them. Its really tough and it consumes your life.

Recorded Daniel Morrow, Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program, 20 April 1995 source ↗

Rory Stewart

That I am not wise.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 January 2026 source ↗

Ram Dass Spiritual teacher and author

Well, I—I've experienced that the stroke was grace. It was grace, for me, to play, to get inside, grace. I was dependent. These are things that I—those, those were graceful things. You know, pushed. And just go inside, to be—you're a quote "author" and it's a cultural thing, that role, to get into your head. But it's a head game. It's a head game. And I wanted to get down to my spiritual identity. And the stroke placed me at the spiritual identity.

Recorded Ross Simonini, The Believer, issue 115, by Skype from Hawaii, 20 November 2017 source ↗

Alex Hassell