Terry Gross
Radio interviewer
Living with severe chronic pain, or forgetting the name of the person I’m interviewing.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What happens when we die?
Death & what remains
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
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.
Dying: I’m too iconic to go.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 December 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →Failure. I hate losing, particularly at football and politics. I play five-a-side every week – middle of midfield, barking orders. Some people say it’s the taking part that counts. I am not in that camp. It’s the winning that counts.
Gloria Steinem
Writer and feminist organiser
Dying just a millisecond before I was about to say something I really wanted the people I love to hear.
The greatest fear I can remember is coming back from WW II and being amazed that I was more afraid to audition for a job than I was flying 52 missions.
More from Layton Williams
View profile →Bad personal hygiene.
Patience is not my forte.
I was a secret shopper and had to do a lot of bookies – Coral and William Hill – all around London. For 18-year-old me looking all fab it was quite scary going in and saying: “Hiya, can I put £4 on No 7 horse, please?” But you got to keep the money when you won.
I really hope there is a big pearly gate.
An extra day in the week when no one can contact you.
Racial and homophobic slurs – the F- and N-words. When I moved to London, people screamed the F-word from their cars, and that stings.
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
Philippa Dunne, Chaka Khan, Cyndi Lauper, Stockard Channing, Monica Dolan, Gina Lollobrigida
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Explore further
- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject