Joshua Ferris: Which living person do you most admire, and why?

Which living person do you most admire, and why?

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.

Recorded Joshua Ferris said elsewhere, not written here

Thomas Pynchon, for his sentences.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 January 2011 source ↗

Others on this question

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Tuppence Middleton

Anyone who can pick up a house spider with their bare hands.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 May 2026 source ↗

Desmond Tutu Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984

Just look at a Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa and Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela, and you’ll see that one of the outstanding characteristics of each one of these is how they have poured themselves out prodigally on behalf of others, of their being so utterly selfless.

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗

Sarah Brown British Anglican priest