Losing my makeup bag.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Identity & self
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?
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.
Collapse of the imagination.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, July 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 255 →I fear the arrogance we are all at risk of, the pride that pushes us to put “I” in place of “God”. More prosaically, I fear physical pain because it risks stripping us of our dignity.
Regrets. That’s no way to live.
Fear is for frightened people. I’m not one of those.
More from Patti Smith
View profile →Tramping through the woods in South Jersey in 1957 with my dog Bambi.
I would love to have a better sense of physical balance.
The artist Gerhard Richter.
Clarity when I am writing.
Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned about doing good work and protect your work. […] Protect your work and if you build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.
Recorded
Christian Lund, Louisiana Literature festival, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 24 August 2012, Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 24 August 2012
source ↗
More on identity & self
- Which trait do you most dislike in yourself? 243 answers
- What most recently made you cry? 193 answers
- What did you want to be when you were growing up? 191 answers
- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 158 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 110 answers
- What are you most proud of? 99 answers
Also answered this · A–Z
Carrie Fisher, Christopher Hitchens, Cory Taylor, Danielle Steel, Eugene Levy, Fay Ripley
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- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
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