Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
My mother used to say to me a thing which, when I look back on it, wasn’t terribly logical.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
One question · 6 of 22 answers to it
What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself?
President of Liberia, 2006–2018
Mine has been a long journey, a lifetime journey to Oslo.
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2011
Playwright; two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama
I think he was expecting someone with a more strident tone and antagonistic demeanor.
Recorded · The Paris Review, Issue 153, Winter 1999 · 1999
Baseball centre fielder; twice National League Most Valuable Player
My father said to me, “You need a piece of paper to go into a door sometimes.” I didn’t understand about résumés, but when you write a résumé you have to put down things that people want to…
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 1996
Animator, cartoon director and screenwriter
My mother said — and I didn’t realize how well it works — when I’d bring a drawing to her, she said, “I don’t look at the drawing.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement (achievement.org)
39th President of the United States, 1977–1981; Governor of Georgia 1971–1975
I thought often during my years in the White House of an admonition that we received in our small school in Plains, Georgia, from a beloved teacher, Miss Julia Coleman.
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2002
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
Which teacher, parent, coach or friend most made you who you are, and what did you learn from them?
Afghan-American novelist
I had really good teachers in high school. Probably I connected the best with an English teacher that I had my junior year in high school, Miss Sanchez, Jan Sanchez — God bless her.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
American writer and lawyer
I had the benefit of some very good high school English teachers. One in particular when I was a senior in high school. I was a jock, okay. I was not a student.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
Basketball coach at UCLA, 1948-1975; winner of ten NCAA championships
My wife, Nellie, my high school sweetheart. She helped me in so many ways. I suppose people today might say it’s hard to believe, but I was an extremely shy person.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
Whose work makes you jealous?
Author and probability researcher; Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at NYU
I say envious of people who are erudite. Like if someone knows Latin very well, I’m envious. If someone knows Sanskrit, I’m envious. And I discovered that early on.
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2023
Film director; Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan
I think I’ve always been jealous of musicians. You hear the story where Bob Dylan wrote a song in the afternoon and it became the anthem for a generation.
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2018
Developmental biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1995
I felt at the time that Eric was much more successful than I, he was extremely productive during his time in Zurich, and worked on many very original projects, germ line, cell lineage, sex…
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 1995
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
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.
Retired boxing manager, promoter and politician
A black Russian terrier – I paid almost £4,000 for him.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
Three degrees: I paid my kids’ uni fees.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
I spend my money on vintage eyewear. I have a massive collection.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
People, by what they do
- Science and medicine 104
- Arts and letters 1205
- Politics and public life 131
- Business and finance 70
- Technology 46
- Sport 108
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Questions, by subject
- Identity & self 14
- Values & belief 13
- Change of mind 1
- Failure & regret 9
- Craft & work 36
- Money & investment 4
- Taste & recommendation 6
- Relationships 5
- Time & hindsight 8
- Death & what remains 13
- Daily life 9
- Attention & the world 8
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Some of the people here · A–Z
Find someone →Amy Poehler, Ann Dowd, Ariel Rubinstein, Barbara McClintock, Bill Maher, BJ Miller, David Chang, Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D., Doris Day, Georgia Harmer, Greg Mendez, Gregory Winter, Harry Belafonte, Harry Hill, Heba Kadry, Helen Phillips, Iris Apfel, Jason Portnoy, Jimmy Carter, Jo Brand, John Hume, John Pawson, Joyce Carol Oates, Keren Woodward, Massimo Pigliucci, Michael Houghton, Michael Rosbash, Ory Okolloh, Reid Hoffman, Robert S. Langer, Roger Federer, Roger Taylor, Rosa Parks, Russell Howard, Sally Bercow, Samira Ahmed, Sarah Brown, Sofia Coppola, Speech Debelle, Yuri Nomura
Answers that stay at one address
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
- People
- 1,669
- Answers
- 7,143
- Questions
- 126
- First said
- 1910–2026
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.