Lee Child: What would you most want to leave your children?

The question

What would you most want to leave your children?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

More than I can, sadly. I led the softest of lives in the softest of times, and my daughter will face sterner challenges.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 June 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

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Nina Riggs Poet and essayist

So maybe I don’t try to figure it out. Maybe I just aim to get the couch right: strong bones, high-quality leather, something earthy and animal and real. A surface that knows something of what it was to be alive, that warms to our touch and cools in our absence. Also: an expansive bench that fits all of us. Something that will hold us through everything that lies ahead — the loving, collapsing and nuzzling. The dying, the grieving.

Recorded The New York Times, Modern Love, 23 September 2016 source ↗

Marcus Mumford

A spirit of generosity.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 February 2026 source ↗

Justin Hawkins

A strong work ethic and enough wealth not to need it.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 March 2025 source ↗

Midge Ure

Exactly what my parents left me: the knowledge of the difference between good and bad and right and wrong. Everything else is entirely up to them.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 September 2023 source ↗

More from Lee Child

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Question As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself? Identity & self

First loved, then laid, then paid.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 June 2025 source ↗

Question Excluding property, what is the most expensive thing you have ever bought? Money & investment

A painting by Renoir, paid for by demanding a huge fee for a screenwriting deal with a producer I didn’t want to work for. The movie was never made.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 June 2025 source ↗

Question Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them? Values & belief

The exact median middle-aged black woman in the US. If hard work guaranteed success, she’d be the most successful person on the planet. But she isn’t, yet she keeps on going.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 June 2025 source ↗