One question · 6 of 23 answers to it
39th President of the United States, 1977–1981; Governor of Georgia 1971–1975
I thought often during my years in the White House of an admonition that we received in our small school in Plains, Georgia, from a beloved teacher, Miss Julia Coleman.
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2002
Animator, cartoon director and screenwriter
My mother said — and I didn’t realize how well it works — when I’d bring a drawing to her, she said, “I don’t look at the drawing.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement (achievement.org)
Baseball centre fielder; twice National League Most Valuable Player
My father said to me, “You need a piece of paper to go into a door sometimes.” I didn’t understand about résumés, but when you write a résumé you have to put down things that people want to…
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 1996
Playwright; two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama
I think he was expecting someone with a more strident tone and antagonistic demeanor.
Recorded · The Paris Review, Issue 153, Winter 1999 · 1999
Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
My mother used to say to me a thing which, when I look back on it, wasn’t terribly logical.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
Ballerina and ballet master; répétiteur for the Balanchine Trust
I think he was a great philosopher. He had a wonderful theory that you live in the “now,” which I think is important.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement (achievement.org)
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
Cardiovascular surgeon; chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. Alton Ochsner certainly was, from a surgical standpoint, my mentor, and the one who influenced me more than anyone else.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
Physician and medical anthropologist; co-founder of Partners In Health
I had lots of teachers encourage me. And I still know some of them, my high school teachers. But one of them encouraged me.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
Inventor and futurist; developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition system
There were some high school teachers. I remember a math teacher, Mr. Ewen — actually a math teacher in eighth grade, Mrs.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
Developmental biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1995
I felt at the time that Eric was much more successful than I, he was extremely productive during his time in Zurich, and worked on many very original projects, germ line, cell lineage, sex…
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 1995
Film director; Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan
I think I’ve always been jealous of musicians. You hear the story where Bob Dylan wrote a song in the afternoon and it became the anthem for a generation.
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2018
Author and probability researcher; Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at NYU
I say envious of people who are erudite. Like if someone knows Latin very well, I’m envious. If someone knows Sanskrit, I’m envious. And I discovered that early on.
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2023
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this standing prompt, with minor contractions and word-order variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Welsh singer-songwriter and actress
When I was 18, I bought a boat for a million pounds and sold it a year later for just over half the price.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2022
American singer-songwriter
The most extravagant thing was a bottle of 1904 armagnac for $1,000. I spent $10,000 on a Martin guitar in the 90s.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2017
British and Canadian actor
Aside from a car, it would be a guitar. I used to have almost 100, but now I am down to 22.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2017
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Alice Sheppard, Barack Obama, Barbara Jordan, Bernadine Evaristo, Brandon Breaux, Bryan Ferry, Catherine Lacey, Cathy Freeman, Claudia Dey, Danny Cipriani, David Lynch, Dominique Dawes, Edith Bowman, Elisa Gabbert, Erin Doherty, Helen Mirren, Henry R. Kravis, Imogen Poots, Jane Fonda, Joe Wicks, John Lithgow, Joss Stone, Julian Clary, Kristen Radtke, Mark Gatiss, Matthew Kelly, Milton Jones, Mindy Kaling, Nicholas Kristof, P Diddy, Rebecca Lucy Taylor, Rita Wilson, Rob da Bank, Sally Hawkins, Simon Boas, Steffi Graf, Steve Coogan, Tamsin Greig, Tori Amos, Winston Churchill
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.