Rory Stewart: 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 Rory Stewart said elsewhere, not written here

That I am not wise.

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

Others on this question

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Pauline McLynn Irish character actress and author

Never be rigid in your thinking, be open.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 July 2023 source ↗

Hugh Skinner

Everything’s temporary, and how to make aioli.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 May 2026 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 ↗

Erin Doherty