The best possible understanding of who they are and where they came from.
What would you like to leave your children?
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
More than I can, sadly. I led the softest of lives in the softest of times, and my daughter will face sterner challenges.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 June 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 44 →A great education.
Good self-esteem.
A house in west London.
More from Lee Child
View profile →Nothing. If I’m worried or upset or tormented, I go to sleep quickly and easily, to find welcome oblivion.
First loved, then laid, then paid.
Appearing on US breakfast radio. I heard the DJ say that after the news we would hear from the author Lincoln Child. I had to choose between making a guy with a mixed-up PR release look like an idiot or pretending to be Lincoln. I pretended.
Do the secret thing you know you were born to do.
Always saying yes to people. For example, I’m doing this.
“Try this, you’ll love it.”
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- What happens when we die? 51 answers
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- All death & what remains questions
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