When I ruin someone else’s story because I think mine is better, so butt in before they’ve finished theirs.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
Which book changed the way you think, and what did it change?
Taste & recommendation
Question
What are you most proud of?
Identity & self
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
What problem are you still trying to solve?
Craft & work
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What inspires you to learn?
Attention & the world
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.
I can be cranky,
Hilary Brueck, Business Insider interview at Ashkin's home, 26 January 2019 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 252 →Too controlling about silly things like timings or not having toxic cleaning products in the house.
When I “poll the audience” and my need to please others.
I can’t stand the way my voice will crack if I’m making a speech. I hate public speaking and the emotion it dredges up.
More from Arthur Ashkin
View profile →Wonder Why would say, 'Why is the sky blue?'…Then Wonder Why would tell you. I was fascinated, because I wanted to know how things worked ... that was my introduction to science.
I didn’t realise I’m the oldest ever! So I just about made it, huh? Because you can’t be dead and win … If you’re a winner of the National Inventors Hall of Fame you can be dead. I won that prize a couple of years ago and I was very proud of that. That is the most, I would say, most important prize I’ve won.
Recorded
Adam Smith, Telephone interview following the announcement of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, The Nobel Prize, 2 October 2018
source ↗
I was very shy, but I knew that this lady was special,…So I had enough nerve to ask for her phone number.
I'm making cheap electricity,
I want to take Aline to a good restaurant, and we'll have a good meal,
Wonder Why would say, 'Why is the sky blue?'…Then Wonder Why would tell you. I was fascinated, because I wanted to know how things worked ... that was my introduction to science.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
Clare Bailey Mosley, Midge Ure, Graham Norton, Lucy Beaumont, Christine Baranski, Penny Lancaster
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