Can I have more than three? Creative, kind, a grafter, engaging, loyal, fun and generous.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
One question · 6 of 111 answers to it
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this exact standing prompt.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Resourceful, resilient and compassionate.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
Enthusiastic, enthusiastic, enthusiastic.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2023
Unimpeachable, nonpareil, self‑effacing.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2026
Silly, loving and, as an Aries, passionate.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
Caring, patient, considerate, innumerate.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
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.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
British singer
A saxophonist, but destiny chose another path for me, and I’m glad it happened that way.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2019
A drunk woman who threw epic dinner parties.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2026
British singer
An English teacher, and then a dance teacher.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2021
What is your greatest fear?
Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
English radio DJ and television presenter
Heights. For Children in Need, I had to abseil off the Orbit in the Olympic Park. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve done.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2022
Cookery writer and shop owner
Pain. I told Jeffrey that if I have a really bad headache just pull the plug.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2016
American filmmaker and actress
Being stuck in a project that’s not challenging me, or true to my nature.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2023
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
British jazz musician
I am not studious enough. I get easily distracted.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2022
I get distracted by anything and everything, so all my projects finish just before the deadline. Sometimes, it’s a bit too tight.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2023
My competitive side, the one that keeps score.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2013
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 →Alexander Armstrong, Alex Honnold, Andrea Martin, Bruce Willis, Bruno Tonioli, Chloë Sevigny, Chris Addison, David Heinemeier Hansson, David Olusoga, Dominique Dawes, Ellen Arkbro, Fearne Cotton, Haruki Murakami, Heather Graham, Henry R. Kravis, Jack Whitehall, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jonathan Safran Foer, Keren Woodward, Lizzy McAlpine, Lynn Nottage, Margaret Hamilton, Marissa Zappas, Marjane Satrapi, Maurice Sendak, Mellody Hobson, Nate Amos, Patricia Smith, Patti LuPone, Penny Goring, Pete Rozelle, Rita Moreno, Róisín Murphy, Sara Cox, Thomas Mars, Tom Ford, Tommy Hilfiger, Vanessa Redgrave, Victor Ambros, Willie Mays
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.