Paul Smith
English fashion designer
I am a happy person. I am happy every day. But if I had to pick a time it would be the first time I fell in love.
When were you happiest?
Question
What do you value most in your friends?
Relationships
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Opening day of The Empire Strikes Back, 86th Street Loews.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, July 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
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Carl Barât
English musician
The last time I held my children and every time before that. They’ve been my salvation.
Alan Dale
New Zealand actor
I have never been happier than I am now. As for when I was happiest in my work, playing King Arthur in Spamalot in the West End.
Ranulph Fiennes
English explorer
In 1982, having travelled for three years to do the first journey around the earth on its polar axis. Charles Burton and I were trying to get from the north pole down to our ship on the edge of the Arctic Sea. We had to float for three months on a diminishing ice floe. Eventually we had to leave the floe and try to get to the ship in canoes with skis under them. In the maze of broken ice we saw its masts on the horizon. That second was probably my happiest moment.
More from Colson Whitehead
View profile →They’ll help me dump a body off the turnpike.
I’m walking down the street angrily muttering to myself and then I run into a neighbor or former coworker and they catch me in this moment of private-public expression. It’s nice to be seen sometimes.
Enough with the constant smiling.
Best to leave things alone. Pull things out, it all comes down. I’m Jenga like that.
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Kellie Maloney, Ted Danson, Mel Giedroyc, Chris Rock, Gavin Rossdale, Chris Ware
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