An actor. I watched a lot of TV because we lived in the countryside and the weather was so bad.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
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.
A writer. Always.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 April 2017 source ↗
Others on this question
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Romesh Ranganathan
English actor and comedian
A comedian or rapper. You can tell by the way I’m dressed that I’m a frustrated rapper.
James Dyson
British inventor and businessman
I had no idea whatsoever, and nor did anyone else. I thought I’d go to art school and see whether I liked it – and of course I did, and stayed.
Edmund Hillary
Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
I really had no idea whatsoever. I feel that my life developed as I went along. I was never one of those people who, at an early age, had picked an objective and worked steadily towards it. All I knew was that I wanted to get involved in adventurous activity. I didn’t have any specific type of activity in mind, but I wanted to do things that were exciting and adventurous. I had a fairly diffused feeling as to what precisely it should be.
More from Ann Patchett
View profile →Before email was invented.
A friend named Charles Strobel, who runs the Campus for Human Development in Nashville. It’s a homeless shelter. He lives a life of pure kindness, and he’s a funny guy.
I’ve never had a terrible job. I’ve been a cook, waitress, bookseller, teacher, freelance writer. I know what the bad jobs are and I haven’t done them.
Pulling yourself out of a wild ocean and on to a life raft.
More on identity & self
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Adrian Edmondson, Andrew O'Hagan, Anne Enright, Armistead Maupin, Dawn O'Porter, Fay Ripley
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