Terry Gross: What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Terry Gross said elsewhere, not written here

The inability to stop talking about themselves when they’re not being interviewed.

Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, September 2012 source ↗

Others on this question

Eleanor Tomlinson English actress

Narcissism. And people coughing on me in public.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 May 2024 source ↗

Arrogance and narcissism.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 October 2024 source ↗

Entitlement or a lack of manners. Though I find they often flock together.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, January 2017 source ↗

Trying too hard to be funny.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2017 source ↗

Their willingness to put up with my endless explanations about why I can’t see them because I’m under deadline.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 1 September 2012 source ↗

A glass of wine, a good dinner with my husband, and a day ahead of me without a deadline is close enough.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 1 September 2012 source ↗

Swiftly, painlessly, and old.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 22 August 2012 source ↗

Living with severe chronic pain, or forgetting the name of the person I’m interviewing.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, September 2012 source ↗

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