Living a life of regret because of fear.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
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.
That this is all there is, and there is no more.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, September 2009 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →I’ll know it when I see it. Hello, Room 101.
Bruce Dickinson
English heavy metal singer
Well, I’m not too happy about snakes. I also hate sand. It’s very inconvenient.
I fear the arrogance we are all at risk of, the pride that pushes us to put “I” in place of “God”. More prosaically, I fear physical pain because it risks stripping us of our dignity.
More from Garrison Keillor
View profile →My president, a heroic figure—also good- humored, pretty smart, elegant; and if the rest of the world thinks he typifies America, I don’t mind at all.
The night my daughter was born, New York, December 29, 1997. After she emerged and I held her in the palm of my hand, I walked around Manhattan in a stupor of happiness.
Self-denigration, an old strategy for extorting praise from people. (“I am a terrible person.” “No, you’re a wonderful person and we all love you.”)
To be wildly, desperately, carelessly, nakedly in love, of course. Crazy, obsessive love: brooding, baying at the moon, writing daily missives to the adored. Who wouldn’t want this? Even though the crash is painful.
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
Sally Mann, Patrick Stewart, Helena Bonham Carter, Cory Taylor, Sofia Coppola, Stephen Fry
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