My love of sugar.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
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.
Conflict aversion.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, October 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
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Jack Whitehall
English comedian, actor, presenter and writer
I’m rabidly indiscreet. If you tell me an embarrassing story, it will probably end up in one of my scripts or standup routines.
I can go for weeks without opening the mail. I can look at a letter that has just dropped through the letterbox, wonder what it is and then just shred it.
My default will always be to go for the worst-case scenario and that is something that I am unlearning.
More from John Lithgow
View profile →Climate change, duh.
Probably the curtain call of my final performance when I played King Lear.
Three versions of the same trait: deceit, hypocrisy, and manipulativeness.
Creating something and feeling proud of it.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
John Grisham, Hamza Yassin, Bryn Terfel, Stephen K Amos, Peter Sarsgaard, Betty White
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