Yo-Yo Ma
Cellist
Very large bugs.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
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.
Not working. I want to be one of those old actors on the set of Casualty at 95, who quietly passes away in the actual scene rather than at home.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 August 2022 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →
Gino D'Acampo
Italian-British celebrity chef and media personality
Overcooking pasta for my Italian family in Napoli – they would kill me.
Tom Lubbock
Art critic
I think that loss of speech, and of understanding of speech, and of understanding of writing, and of coherent writing – these losses will amount to the loss of my mind. I know what this feels like and it has no insides, no internal echo. Mind means talking to oneself. There wouldn't be any secret mind surviving in me.
That we’re all going to hell in a handcart and Trump is driving.
More from Angela Griffin
View profile →The fact that there are not enough hours in the day and I’ve taken on too much.
During the first week or two of lockdown. We didn’t know what was coming and it didn’t feel dangerous at that point; there was just a real sense of family and hunkering down.
Catastrophising.
People who are not self-aware.
A personal assistant.
Lee Warburton. He had just left drama school and was doing the Alexander technique in the Corrie green room. I hadn’t been to drama school, and really took the piss out of him.
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- 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
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