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.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
I’d rather name one for someone else. I’m egomaniacal.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, July 2014 source ↗
I don’t say that I’m perfect but there’s nothing that I deplore.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 August 2025 source ↗
Intermittent laziness.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 June 2025 source ↗
Impatience and being bossy.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 December 2024 source ↗
Meryl Streep. For all her truthful and perfected offerings that have taken me to an “elsewhere”, in which my mind could feel both soothed and stimulated.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
Like coming home.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
Working as the assistant to an agony aunt on a women’s magazine. When we didn’t get enough heartbreaking letters, we made them up.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
We live in a fearful age: Brexit, Covid, global warming, cancel culture, war in Ukraine. Add in pancreatic cancer and you find me in an advanced and complex state of anxiety.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
When I first met Richard, in 1992, on a British Council writers’ tour of Adelaide. We were drinking Australian lager while parakeets squawked rudely in the neighbourhood gumtrees.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
A cream suit from Chanel that cost almost as much as a small car.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
Adam Kay, Adam Lambert, Adele Parks, Adrian Dunbar, Al Franken, Alex Hassell
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