Cruelty, and also general rudeness and unkindness. I’ve always told my children: Don’t ever find entertainment in someone else’s discomfort.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, May 2024 source ↗
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck?
Craft & work
Question
What do you value most in your friends?
Relationships
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
How does a new work begin for you?
Craft & work
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.
Dishonesty. It destroys relationships. It’s something celebrities especially have to guard against because people are prone to tell you what they think you want to hear rather than the truth.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2020 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 196 →When people are rude to their waiter.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 February 2025 source ↗
Hugh Grant
Actor
Telling me the menu is only accessible through the QR code.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2024 source ↗
Elmore Leonard
Novelist and screenwriter
Guys who use the word “snot.”
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, December 2012 source ↗
More from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
View profile →Barack Obama has shown us how to be a politician guided by intelligence, integrity, and compassion.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2020 source ↗
I don’t think that is tough, because if you have an idea of something meaningful to communicate, you can move forward on that. You might not be successful in communicating what you want to communicate, but at least you have an idea of something that needs to be said, or something that you think should be said, and I think you go from there.
Recorded Academy of Achievement source ↗
Loyalty. Not fawning, but a loyalty based on our shared love and history that fosters compassion and forgiveness.
Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 27 August 2020 source ↗
Laziness. After 30 years of being a disciplined athlete with an intensely tight schedule, I still can’t forgive myself for letting things slide.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2020 source ↗
Years ago, before I had my current manager, I was taken advantage of by people I’d trusted with my finances. That’s made me especially sensitive to the prospect of financial ruin. I’m constantly advising young athletes to be vigilant when it comes to whom you trust with your finances.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2020 source ↗
I don’t think that is tough, because if you have an idea of something meaningful to communicate, you can move forward on that. You might not be successful in communicating what you want to communicate, but at least you have an idea of something that needs to be said, or something that you think should be said, and I think you go from there.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 1989 source ↗
More on values & belief
- Which living person do you most admire, and why? 401 answers
- What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong? 74 answers
- What are you unwilling to optimise? 27 answers
- What have you come to understand about what it means to be human? 13 answers
- What is the most overrated virtue? 10 answers
- What do you need to believe in order to get through the day? 8 answers
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