The question
Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's Q&A repeatedly uses this prompt, sometimes dropping 'living' while retaining the same comparative judgment.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
My mother. She’s 85 and rather than diminishing with age, she keeps surprising and growing more marvelous. She finds fun when most are jaded, wonder when most are cynical, and is curious when most are bored. She gave me life and continues to show me how to live it daily. And I know that everyone who meets her thinks the same.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2020 source ↗
All the Paralympic athletes.
My dad, because he is full of integrity and good humour; and my grandad, because he's full of the same.
Nick Cave for his determination to hold a space for public discourse on the deep and difficult and mysterious elements of life.
The Queen. Long may she reign.
My distractibility, diminishing memory, and capacity for sustained concentration. My English master once said I had the brain of a butterfly. I feel that 40 years later, I’ve evolved into Dory from Finding Nemo.
The loss of anything, be it a loved one or a faculty—my sight, hearing, or mind.
Both of the days my children were born. It was like I’d stepped through a mirror and everything turned Technicolor.
At the right time, and like my father—utterly without fear or pain, at home, with all whom I love. It was his last lesson as a parent to me.
In my bed, a hot-water bottle on my tummy, the windows are open, reading a book that I’m already into, chocolate at hand, all with the knowledge that everyone I love and know is happy.
Pedro Almodóvar, Dolly Parton, Elaine Paige, Richard Wilson, Matt Smith, Eddie Izzard
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