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The Q&A

The Guardian, put to a different person each week

Originally asked

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

The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this standing prompt, with minor contractions and word-order variation.

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

25 questions, 4,889 answers to them so far. Every one of them is asked here as itself, with the format it came from on the page. Nobody answers as anybody else. 4,883 of the answers are quoted from interviews in The Guardian, Vanity Fair and elsewhere, each shown with its source. The people quoted did not answer on FLAPSS; members answer the same questions as themselves, and their answers are kept apart from the quotations.

What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?

Paul McKenna

British hypnotist and TV personality

Recorded · The Guardian · 2023

Pleasure is a glass of champagne, happiness is when you are living your values. I get up each morning and I’m excited by the day, and I have good health.
Jessica Raine

British actress

Recorded · The Guardian · 2019

The day I got accepted by Rada and the day I found out I was pregnant, both a long time coming. I am a late bloomer.
Read all 577 →

Every question in this set

  1. Excluding property, what is the most expensive thing you have ever bought? 198
  2. How would you sum yourself up in three words? 114
  3. As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself? 197
  4. Which trait in yourself do you like least? 239
  5. How would you describe what love feels like to you? 213
  6. What disappointment has stayed with you longest? 367
  7. What is the worst job you have ever had? 230
  8. Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them? 407
  9. What song would you want played at your funeral? 178
  10. What thought won't let you sleep? 196
  11. What worries you about getting older? 61
  12. What trait do you most dislike in other people? 193
  13. What is the harshest thing anyone has said to you? 122
  14. Which book do you still mean to read, and why has it stayed on your list? 32
  15. How close have you come to dying? 209
  16. What most recently moved you to tears? 192
  17. When were you most embarrassed? 122
  18. Who deserves an apology from you, and for what? 209
  19. What accomplishment matters most to you? 192
  20. What lesson has mattered most in your life? 138
  21. What one change would most improve the quality of your daily life? 206
  22. If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change? 203
  23. What do you believe happens when we die? 50
  24. What would you most want to leave your children? 44
  25. What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy? 577

The number is how many answers are on the record here. A dash means nobody has answered it yet, which is an opening rather than a gap.