“And for you, sir?” It happens a lot.
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
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.
“Didn’t you used to be Graydon Carter?”
The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 June 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 122 →
Chaka Khan
American singer
A friend said, “If you remembered everything you did, you’d kill yourself.” He’s sort of crazy, but he’s probably right.
The music journalist Paul Morley described me as bland.
One time an engineer said, “I always forget your frequency is at the same level as a crying baby.” I think he was on to something, because I have been told to shush many times over the years.
More from Graydon Carter
View profile →Be generous and kind. Honestly, those two things did everything for me.
Getting into a tense argument with Russell Crowe during one of the Vanity Fair Oscar parties.
My children’s education.
That I didn’t go to Turkey during the pandemic for one of those male hair treatments.
My first week in New York in 1978, when I was about to start as a writer at Time. And my first week in the south of France after retiring from my job of 25 years as editor of Vanity Fair.
It will be the one or two or three senior Republican leaders who take a public and forceful stand against the ugly lunacy of the Trump administration.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 366 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 122 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 69 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 36 answers
Also answered this
Sharleen Spiteri, Indira Varma, Craig Charles, Rebecca Ferguson, Russell Mael, Kelly Hoppen
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