Charles Osgood: What is your greatest fear?

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.

Recorded Charles Osgood said elsewhere, not written here

Being found out.

Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, October 1999 source ↗

Others on this question

I become very anxious if I think I’ve hurt someone.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 January 2026 source ↗

Romesh Ranganathan English actor and comedian

My children ending up anything like me.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 August 2024 source ↗

The fact that, until recently, “the end of the world” would have seemed pretentious and evasive, and now seems like the only possible answer.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2023 source ↗

Edward Enninful Ghanaian-born English editor and stylist

When I get to the restaurant and don’t see any hot sauce on the table.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 December 2022 source ↗

Their frankness and honesty.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, October 1999 source ↗

Drinks on the deck at sunset.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 1 October 1999 source ↗

Search the directory for somebody in particular.