Not being able to work.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Identity & self
Question
What do you value most in your friends?
Relationships
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
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.
I don’t want to be lost and burn in hell.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2001 source ↗
Others on this question
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Marina Abramović
Performance artist
To be eaten by a shark.
Nuclear holocaust.
Not waking up in the morning.
More from Little Richard
View profile →Selfishness—people who don’t care about others or their feelings and will do or say anything as long as they get what they want.
To be taller. I’ve been looking up at certain people all my life. If I was taller, I could look down and see them a lot better.
Unselfishness. I like to surround myself with people who are kind and have feelings for others and their problems.
Being at peace with God.
In Macon, Georgia, during my childhood. I knew everybody there—it was like the whole town was your family. I felt complete there.
More on identity & self
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- What did you want to be when you were growing up? 222 answers
- What most recently made you cry? 193 answers
- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 166 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 120 answers
- What are you most proud of? 117 answers
Also answered this
Andrea Bocelli, Pauline McLynn, Nigel Havers, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Eugene Levy, Dawn O’Porter
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- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
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