Danielle Steel
Novelist
Not always standing up for myself enough.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
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.
I still say yes to too many things.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
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Mike Wallace
American journalist
Self-absorption.
Impulsivity. We end up in strange places, like right now – I am in the Middle East.
Standing up while eating.
More from Carol Vorderman
View profile →I genuinely can’t remember crying.
Independent, curious and funny.
I was happiest in every aspect of my life in the 1990s, when I was married to Paddy [King, a management consultant] and we had the two children and my mum lived with us, and Countdown was the biggest show on Channel 4.
My aeroplane, a Diamond DA42. It’s a twin-engine aircraft and I bought her brand new to fly around the world solo. Very sadly my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer about six weeks before I was due to take off, in May 2017, and she died early June. After that, I lost interest in doing it.
There are one or two relationships where I’d see the red flags much earlier.
Living in a campervan for a week with Timmy Mallett for a children’s TV show about 40 years ago.
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