Colson Whitehead: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Originally asked

Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire

Verbatim recurring item in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire; two publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Colson Whitehead said elsewhere, not written here

I’m walking down the street angrily muttering to myself and then I run into a neighbor or former coworker and they catch me in this moment of private-public expression. It’s nice to be seen sometimes.

The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 18 July 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

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Gayle King Broadcaster

Close friends, spectacular food, gorgeous weather, and interesting conversation!

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 5 July 2016 source ↗

Roger Moore

Being with those that I love, and they have no problems.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 1 December 2008 source ↗

Judy Blume Novelist

A balmy, moonlit evening in Key West. George and I are enjoying a pasta dinner on the balcony overlooking the ocean. Ella Fitzgerald is singing in the background.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 28 April 2023 source ↗

Joyce Carol Oates Novelist, short story writer and essayist

“Perfect happiness!”—waking in the morning to a clear & benevolent-seeming sky, a view from a window of a beautiful (if overgrown) garden, a cat purring. The excitement of rewriting the previous day’s work, & continuing on from that point energized & hopeful. For a writer, “happiness” isn’t likely to ever be “perfect”—but it is likely to be bound up with the work-in-progress. First drafts tend to be frustrating, exhausting—subsequent drafts sometimes move swiftly, even miraculously. For most adults, “Perfect is the enemy of good”—we learn to appreciate whatever measure of happiness we have, however modest.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 28 November 2018 source ↗