Laziness, wasting time. I’d like to be able to make films faster.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2010
One question · 6 of 252 answers to it
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
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.
Australian actor
Yielding to the wrong sort of melancholia.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2014
When I “poll the audience” and my need to please others.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2022
Novelist, short story writer and essayist
If I had a trait that I truly deplored, I would work to erase or modify it…Probably, a lack of discipline.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2018
British Army Air Corps officer and astronaut
Shyness. It really held me back when I was younger, and I wish it hadn’t. I do a better job of not being so shy these days.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2022
I can always see two points of view, which makes it hard to have a row.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2026
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
What do you value most in your friends?
Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
A fixed Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire item asked across its three-decade archive, with independent variants in friendship and profile interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Comedian and actor
That they’re my friends. I trust them and they trust me.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2022
Kindness and laughter. If someone makes me laugh, I’m halfway in love.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2024
Theatre and film director
Love of fun and food and great conversation.
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2022
What does love feel like?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this exact standing prompt.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
British professional tennis player, 2005–2024
I am happy to sit in silence with my wife and I think that is a good sign – we are just happy being in each other’s company.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2019
English actor
Warm contentment, and like nothing else exists.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2018
British actor and musician
Not feeling like you have to be anywhere else.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2022
What is the most rewarding part of being a parent?
Originally asked
Vogue, to one guest at a time, on camera, 73 Questions
Vogue asked close variants of Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, and Nicki Minaj between 2020 and 2023; the same prompt recurs independently in parenting interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Playwright and screenwriter
I’m much much closer to my children than my father was to me, and I would hope that the quality of love I’ve given them is different from the quality my father gave me.
Recorded · The Arts Desk · 2009
Host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday
My greatest joy as a father is to see our children growing up and growing independent, and becoming brilliant ...
Recorded · PBS NewsHour · 2022
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1997-2009; Nobel Peace Prize 2005
I think it’s more modeling. I never bring in my children and say, “Listen, these are the values you should follow in life.” I think it’s a modeling by my wife and me.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2006
People, by what they do
- Science and medicine 105
- Arts and letters 1211
- Politics and public life 132
- Business and finance 70
- Technology 47
- Sport 109
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Questions, by subject
- Identity & self 14
- Values & belief 13
- Change of mind 1
- Failure & regret 9
- Craft & work 36
- Money & investment 4
- Taste & recommendation 6
- Relationships 5
- Time & hindsight 8
- Death & what remains 13
- Daily life 9
- Attention & the world 8
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Some of the people here · A–Z
Find someone →Andrea Martin, Belinda Carlisle, Benjamin Zephaniah, Beth Breeze, Chelsea Wolfe, Cheryl Strayed, David Yow, Denise Lewis, Dominic West, Eddie Izzard, Edwina Currie, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Fei-Fei Li, Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, Hilary Mantel, Isabel Allende, J.K. Rowling, Jacqueline Wilson, Jean-Jacques Burnel, Jeremy Vine, John Prescott, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Laura Parnes, Lauren Laverne, Louis Smith, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Marc Quinn, Mel Brooks, Natalie Imbruglia, Ottessa Moshfegh, Peter Thiel, Rebecca Ness, Richard Leakey, Robert S. Langer, Shaznay Lewis, Stephen Dillane, Stéphane Lambiel, Thomas Mars, Tom Burke, Torbjørn Brundtland
Answers that stay at one address
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
- People
- 1,679
- Answers
- 7,485
- Questions
- 126
- First said
- 1910–2026
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.