Dolly Parton
American singer-songwriter, actress and businesswoman
Flipping my wig.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
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.
My children dying before me.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, January 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →
Fay Ripley
English actress, television presenter, cookbook author
Spiders, needles, blood, pain and breaking wind in public.
Alison Steadman
British actress
That we will drown in plastic waste.
Democracy proves to be a Potemkin village and gross inequality becomes our permanent way of life.
More from Keith McNally
View profile →Taking an overnight train in Europe.
Craving the kind of success I pretend to despise.
Using knowledge as a weapon.
Cycling around Martha’s Vineyard alone in the summer of 1976.
More on identity & self
- Which trait do you most dislike in yourself? 243 answers
- What did you want to be when you were growing up? 195 answers
- What most recently made you cry? 193 answers
- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 158 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 111 answers
- What are you most proud of? 103 answers
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