Playwright and screenwriter
In life you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t complain when you pick up the bill.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2018
The 2010s
The deepest part of the record, and the decade the podcast interview took over from the profile.
59 people · 3,022 answers
What is the best advice you have ever received?
Originally asked
Vogue, to one guest at a time, on camera, 73 Questions
A repeated rapid-fire prompt in Vogue's 73 Questions, verified in separate English- and Korean-language episodes.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Physician and biochemist; Nobel laureate in chemistry for work on G protein-coupled receptors
I often repeat to them something that — not my mentor, but a senior scientist at the NIH — said to me once. We were having lunch together.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2014
Civil rights leader, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Mayor of Atlanta
Her lesson all the time was “To them to whom much has been given, of them will much be required.”
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2013
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1993–2020; Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit 1980–1993
My mother-in-law’s advice, which she gave me on the day of our wedding — we were married in Marty’s home, and his mother took me into the bedroom, her bedroom and said, “Dear, I’d like to…
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2016
Composer of musical theatre
Harold Prince went to see it and he wrote me a letter saying don’t be discouraged about this because actually there’s some quite good songs in here.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2019
Engineer and designer; led the iPod and iPhone teams at Apple, founder of Nest Labs
Elliot, he has such passion for what it was we were doing that he instilled that passion in me. He was like, “Just go for it.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2016
Are you afraid of death?
Originally asked
The Talks, to its interviewees, its interview series
The Talks asks this directly or through an equivalent risk-and-mortality formulation across interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Editor and memoirist
These matters have become discussable with one’s friends, not, of course, as a frequent part of gossip over lunch in the dining room (our only communal occasion) but from time to time,…
Recorded · The Guardian · 2014
Neurologist and writer
I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude.
Recorded · The New York Times · 2015
Essayist, critic and journalist
The chief side effect of this pain is numbness in the extremities, filling me with the not irrational fear that I shall lose the ability to write.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2012
39th President of the United States, 1977–1981; Governor of Georgia 1971–1975
At first I - I felt that it was confined to my liver and that they had - the operation had completely removed it. And so I felt quite relieved.
Recorded · CNN · 2015
Film critic
I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path.
Recorded · Salon · 2011
Novelist and essayist
Missing a few months of feeling awful, being dead, versus not missing those months of feeling awful.
Recorded · London Review of Books · 2015
How would you like to die?
Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
A fixed final question in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire, repeated verbatim across respondent pages.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Film composer
Showing off onstage, with everyone laughing and applauding.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2019
Actor and director
Like? I have no soft spot, fondness, admiration, respect, attraction, or esteem for death. I am not taken with it or infatuated by it.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2014
Novelist and essayist
Oblivious to the event or on the brink of a genuine religious conversion.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2016
Novelist and essayist
One thing I state as soon as we’re out of the door: ‘Under no circumstances is anyone to say that I lost a battle with cancer. Or that I bore it bravely.
Recorded · London Review of Books · 2014
Editor and memoirist
That process depends on what you are dying of.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2014
Actor
In my sleep. And I don’t think about it. It’ll be what it’ll be.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2013
Everyone here · A–Z
Aaron Ciechanover, Abby Wambach, Ada Yonath, Alex Honnold, Alison Moyet, Andy Serkis, Arlene Phillips, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arthur Ashkin, Barack Obama, Bear Grylls, Bill Clinton, Cheryl Strayed, Chris Hoy, Christopher Hitchens, David Guetta, David Hare, David Lynch, David Vélez, Derek Sivers, Ephraim Asili, François Ozon, Geoffrey Rush, George Takei, Gloria Estefan, Gloria Steinem, Henry R. Kravis, Hiroshi Mikitani, Jacqueline Novogratz, Jenna Coleman, Jia Tolentino, John Lewis, Julie Andrews, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Leon Panetta, Malala Yousafzai, Mario Molina, Mellody Hobson, Mike Skinner, Neil Gaiman, Niamh Cusack, Nish Kumar, Oliver Sacks, Omid Djalili, Patricia Hodge, Peyton Manning, Romola Garai, Sandi Toksvig, Sarah Perry, Shinya Yamanaka, Shirley Manson, Simone Biles, Sonia Sotomayor, Suzanne Vega, Tom Kerridge, Tony Judt, Warren Buffett, Wayne Rooney, Yvon Chouinard