My bottomless pit of need. Soft erections. It was hard to keep it to just two.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong?
Values & belief
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job?
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.
That I give way too quickly.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, May 2013 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 243 →I can always see two points of view, which makes it hard to have a row.
Impatience and vanity.
Helena Bonham Carter
Actor
My distractibility, diminishing memory, and capacity for sustained concentration. My English master once said I had the brain of a butterfly. I feel that 40 years later, I’ve evolved into Dory from Finding Nemo.
More from David Hockney
View profile →I thought I was a hedonist at the time, but when I look back I was always working. I am always working. I work every day. I never give parties; I never gave them.
That they don’t give way quickly.
To get the most out of the world around you you’ve got to really look hard. Most people out walking in the woods don’t really look. They just glance around. They scan. Before I start a painting I spend a lot of time looking and thinking, I go out in the car and pull a chair out of the boot and sit in the woods. I sit there and smoke and just look.
Recorded
The National, Interview in the courtyard of the Royal Academy, London, The National, 1 January 2012
source ↗
More on identity & self
Also answered this · A–Z
Adam Kay, Adam Lambert, Adele Parks, Adrian Dunbar, Al Franken, Alex Hassell
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All identity & self questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject