I’m irritated by critics and academics who dismiss poetry that is popular, comprehensible or humorous.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What do you value most in your friends?
Relationships
Question
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The inability to listen.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 196 →Enough with the constant smiling.
Anne Enright
Novelist and short-story writer
I find it really interesting the way people are drawn to power, usually male power, sometimes in its dark mode. I wonder what they get from it. My experience of bastards is that there is very little material benefit gained from being in their company, though you feel there might be, any minute. Or you get something for a while and then the polarity switches. It’s a huge con. Trump made the mechanism clear – in this, I think he is a timely figure.
Angela Griffin
British actress and television presenter
People who are not self-aware.
More from Henry Winkler
View profile →The entire family being healthy, being on the set of Barry, and a rainbow trout on my line.
I can be pedantic at times.
The delivery room when my children and grandchildren were born.
Being confined in a straitjacket.
Being able to share a confidence.
My dyslexia. Or my inability to learn another language.
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