Clothes moths (and the imminent threat of world war three).
What is your greatest fear?
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
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.
Having a great fear.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 January 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →Democracy proves to be a Potemkin village and gross inequality becomes our permanent way of life.
Edward Enninful
Ghanaian-born English editor and stylist
When I get to the restaurant and don’t see any hot sauce on the table.
Sally Field
Actor
A bumpy flight … or driving with my son Sam, who drives great, but I still can’t believe he’s old enough.
More from Matthew Modine
View profile →I would deplore feeling deplorable about myself.
The inability to negotiate peace and truly forgive.
As a kind person who cared for others.
My biggest disappointment would be living with disappointment. What a burden to be shackled to. I would be truly disappointed if I didn’t (as the song says) pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.
Like falling – endlessly – and then discovering you have wings.
That we are all no more and no less than a single thread in a gigantic web of life. What we do and how we behave has repercussions for the entire web.
More on identity & self
- Which trait do you most dislike in yourself? 243 answers
- What did you want to be when you were growing up? 195 answers
- What most recently made you cry? 193 answers
- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 158 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 111 answers
- What are you most proud of? 103 answers
Also answered this
Johnny Flynn, Felicity Jones, Carrie Fisher, Craig Charles, Robert De Niro, Robert Carlyle
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject