Yo-Yo Ma
Cellist
Very large bugs.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What happens when we die?
Death & what remains
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
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.
Dying too young, and spiders.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 August 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →
Patti Smith
Musician, poet and photographer
Collapse of the imagination.
Pain of any sort.
Kellie Maloney
Retired boxing manager, promoter and politician
Losing my family.
More from Su Pollard
View profile →Kind, fun and professional.
Stay out of other people’s business.
We drift off to a beautiful place where we live a better, fuller life than what we’ve left.
I don’t say that I’m perfect but there’s nothing that I deplore.
Getting my full Equity card as a professional performer.
Like you’ve got no other thought in your head.
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
Also answered this
Monica Lewinsky, Serena Williams, Diahann Carroll, Ernest Borgnine, Danielle Steel, Ally McCoist
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- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject