Elmore Leonard
Novelist and screenwriter
Guys who use the word “snot.”
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I’m irritated by critics and academics who dismiss poetry that is popular, comprehensible or humorous.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 January 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
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Mike Wallace
American journalist
Self-absorption.
Careless cruelty.
Meghan Trainor
American singer-songwriter
Being mean online.
More from Roger McGough
View profile →Last Sunday when all the family came round to celebrate my 88th birthday. (Or was it Saturday. Or the week before, perhaps?)
A picnic on the beach at Seaforth during the war. Somehow I managed to wriggle through a barbed-wire fence and run across a minefield. My teenage aunt Kat bravely followed suit and rescued me.
Unimpeachable, nonpareil, self‑effacing.
I’m embarrassed when I get people’s names wrong.
Losing track (see above).
A lady came up to me in Tesco last year and said, “Excuse me, but didn’t you used to be Roger McGough?”
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