HC
I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
The question
What do you fear most?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.
Others on this question
View all 256 →
John Simm
English musician and actor
Outliving my kids – and rats.
I don’t have a great fear of anything. I look at things with positive eyes.
Generally? Hurting someone’s feelings. Specifically? Being kidnapped while on vacation.
I am spooked by water underground, water in drains and water in machinery. I am very frightened of mill wheels.
More from Harlan Coben
View profile →With a wistful smile.
A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.
I was followed by a mob of fans when I was doing a photoshoot in Paris. When I signed autographs for them during a break, one remarked: “Who the fuck is Harlan Coben? I told you it wasn’t Bruce Willis.”
I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.
We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.
I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.
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Patti Smith, Eugene Levy, Pauline McLynn, Danielle Steel, Rose Tremain, Jack Whitehall
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