I know we all have to die, but when my time comes, I’d rather it not be because a goose flew into the engine of a plane I’m on.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, July 2016 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
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Warren Buffett
Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025
And now, you've got nine countries, including, you know, a guy in North Korea. I mean, and there will be, something will happen. And we worried enormously about it when there were two. And we had perfectly, we had really pretty sane leaders in Kennedy and Khrushchev. You know, I mean, you were not dealing with unstable people or anything like that.
Recorded
Becky Quick, CNBC “Squawk Box”, recorded in Omaha; CNBC's own transcript of its own broadcast, 31 March 2026
source ↗
Being found out.
To overcook that plate of fettuccine.
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
Developmental biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1995
I don’t think it’s misused yet, people are afraid of it might be misused but on the other hand, there is also value in finding out about the relation between several particular predispositions. You might be more careful if you are told that your genetic background is such that you shouldn’t eat fat in large amounts or so, it does help you change your life a little bit and so it’s not so bad, but it’s hard to find out which genetic background is causing these things.
Recorded
Marika Griehsel, Interview at the 53rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, 30 June–4 July 2003, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 July 2003
source ↗
More from Gayle King
View profile →Close friends, spectacular food, gorgeous weather, and interesting conversation!
It’s a toss-up between mean and petty.
I’d like to die anytime after the age of 90—in my sleep!
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Oprah Winfrey. She always does the right thing—even when no one is looking.
I’m disorganized.
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