Welsh bass-baritone singer
“You’re a wonderful musician but a terrible friend.” It was Daniel Barenboim, the famous conductor, because I didn’t have time in the calendar to work with him.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
One question · 6 of 125 answers to it
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
“Let’s face it, you’re not Ingrid Bergman.” I was 19 and he was a potential boyfriend. My only thought at the time was: “I’m not?”
Recorded · The Guardian · 2026
British actor
On my professional stage debut, I heard my drama tutor moan, “Oh no” from the rear stalls as soon as I appeared.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2022
Irish-British novelist
“You’ll never walk again.” This was when I was eight or nine and recovering from viral encephalitis.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2023
“Do you know what your problem is?” It was a dear friend of mine. They were referring to the fact that I’m impatient.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
The music journalist Paul Morley described me as bland.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2023
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 book are you ashamed not to have read?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
None. I’m not ashamed. I’m dyslexic so I don’t read a lot of books.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2026
I never finished The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
Audiobooks have allowed me to catch up on the books I always claimed to have read anyway. On long journeys I’ll often be listening to Kafka, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
How close have you come to death?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
When my first husband died, because it felt like my life was over, and it was challenging to keep in life at the time.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2023
British track cyclist, 1994–2013
The London terror attack on 7/7 in 2005. I was in London the day before for the Olympic bid.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2018
Irish actor
Last year, driving in California, I found myself on the wrong side of the road. I was 30 seconds away from hitting two cars coming the other way.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2017
What is the biggest obstacle you have faced professionally?
Originally asked
The American Academy of Achievement, to its honourees, its oral-history interviews
The Academy of Achievement repeatedly asks honorees to identify a major professional obstacle or challenge and describe confronting it.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Founder and executive chairperson of Biocon
I faced a number of credibility hurdles linked to gender, youth and the nature of my business venture.
Recorded · MyIndMakers · 2016
Basketball coach at Duke University, 1980-2022; winner of five NCAA championships
In ’91, we were playing Nevada Las Vegas, and they’d won 45 in a row. It was almost like it would be okay to lose.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2001
Film director, screenwriter and painter
The studios are superreluctant to give final cut. They have so much money riding on these things, so they want a committee to go and rule the roost.
Recorded · Interview Magazine · 2012
People, by what they do
- Science and medicine 105
- Arts and letters 1211
- Politics and public life 132
- Business and finance 70
- Technology 47
- Sport 109
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 →Alfred Molina, Andrew W.K., Angela Merkel, Ann Dowd, Barbara Hulanicki, Brian Grazer, Carly Simon, Chaitanya Tamhane, Danielle Steel, Diana Athill, Donatella Versace, Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Kemp, Gavin Rossdale, Henry R. Kravis, Indra Nooyi, Iris Apfel, Jane Asher, Jerry Hall, Joan Collins, Joss Stone, Karamo Brown, Kelis Rogers, Kelly Macdonald, Kerry Godliman, Kristen Radtke, Marcus Rashford, Michelle Rial, M Lin, Norman Foster, Ralph Steadman, Rupert Graves, Sofie Gråbøl, Sue Townsend, Tao Lin, Tina Brown, Trevor Noah, Vince Gill, Wanjira Mathai, Yusuf Islam
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
- 1,679
- Answers
- 7,911
- 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.