I can be a huge asshole, not very nice. Doesn’t happen very often, but when it happens, it’s not attractive.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
What inspires you to learn?
Attention & the world
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the biggest obstacle you have faced professionally?
Craft & work
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
My tendency to skip meals.
Vanity Fair, Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 6 December 2019 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 243 →Any type of indecision.
Cybill Shepherd
American actress and former model
Acting like the good little girl.
Audra McDonald
Singer and actor
If hoarding and procrastination were Olympic sports, I’d have at least 70 gold medals.
More from John Lewis
View profile →Buying art…. But it makes me happy!
When I was growing up on a farm in rural Alabama, I fell in love with raising chickens. They seem truly innocent. Whenever I'm around chickens, I feel happy.
I wanted to know. I asked a lot of questions and she would say, "Read, read."…So she inspired me a great deal.
Recorded
Julian Bond, Explorations in Black Leadership interview, Explorations in Black Leadership, University of Virginia
source ↗
When I was growing up I wanted to be a minister. I wanted to preach.
You must find a way to get in the way, you must find a way to get into trouble — good trouble, necessary trouble.
Recorded
Emory University Quadrangle, Atlanta, Emory News Center, Emory University, 12 May 2014
source ↗
More than anything else, I had to combat the barriers, and we tore down those barriers. I just had to set a sail against the wind, those strong winds, to end segregation and racial discrimination, but somehow, in some way, I didn’t let those barriers keep me down.
More on identity & self
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Adam Kay, Adam Lambert, Adele Parks, Adrian Dunbar, Al Franken, Alex Hassell
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