The question

What do you fear most?

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.

Others on this question

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Of choking on some food and having no one nearby to do the Heimlich maneuver.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, February 2013 source ↗
Mike Wallace American journalist
I don’t have any left. I’ve already lost a son. I guess, maybe, that my wife would leave me, but she wouldn’t dare.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2015 source ↗

More from Patti Smith

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Question What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore? Time & hindsight
Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned about doing good work and protect your work. […] Protect your work and if you build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.
Recorded Christian Lund, Louisiana Literature festival, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 24 August 2012, Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 24 August 2012 source ↗

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Julian Clary, Harlan Coben, Cory Taylor, Kathy Lette, Stephen Fry, Fran Lebowitz

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