Gayle King
Broadcaster
I’m disorganized.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What problem are you still trying to solve?
Craft & work
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
How would you like to die?
Death & what remains
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?
Time & hindsight
Question
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Failure & regret
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.
My tendency to skip meals.
Vanity Fair, Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 6 December 2019 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 243 →I’m quite stubborn.
Impulsivity. We end up in strange places, like right now – I am in the Middle East.
Having no patience.
More from John Lewis
View profile →There are many battles. There’s so much that needs to be done. We need to protect the environment. Save this little planet. Not just this little piece of real estate we call America, but save the planet.
When I was growing up I wanted to be a minister. I wanted to preach.
I don't want to die. I don't think I'm going to die…but we all have to die. Since I do, I hope I live on in the hearts and minds of people.
Barack Obama, because he believed he could be president of the United States, and he succeeded. He was kind, and he tried to set a high standard of leadership.
You must find a way to get in the way, you must find a way to get into trouble — good trouble, necessary trouble.
Recorded
Emory University Quadrangle, Atlanta, Emory News Center, Emory University, 12 May 2014
source ↗
I never thought that we would fail or that I would fail. I knew from time to time we may make some blunders. We may make some mistakes, but we were not going to fail.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
Barack Obama, Jon Snow, Bob Schieffer, Malala Yousafzai, Caroline Lucas, Bill Clinton
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- All identity & self questions
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