Quickly and by surprise. I don’t want the specter of death to linger.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 17 February 2015 source ↗
The question
What kind of death would you consider a good one?Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
A fixed final question in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire, repeated verbatim across respondent pages.
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Others on this question
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John Mellencamp
Singer and songwriter
I need a long and lingering death to make sure that I have time to have a deathbed conversion.
Pedro Almodóvar
Film director
Like John Huston, after shooting The Dead.
Willem Dafoe
Actor
How doesn’t matter—it’s when that matters. When I’m ready!
T Bone Burnett
Musician and record producer
I would like to die in good health, at an old age, in a house on a mountain that looks out over the ocean, dreaming about everyone and everything I have had the impossible good fortune to have loved. Maybe Ralph Stanley is singing “Angel Band.”
More from Neil Patrick Harris
View profile →That it all goes away and never comes back.
Probably being granted all-access to a Disney theme park with my husband, David, and a group of close friends—and just us—while we wandered and drank tropical tiki drinks. No judgment, no lines, no bad weather, and no hangovers. Oh, and our twins would be there too, but only when they’re happy and meltdown-free. I guess the same would go for David.
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- How close have you come to dying? 209 answers
- What song would you want played at your funeral? 178 answers
- If you had only one day left, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid? 54 answers
- What do you believe happens when we die? 50 answers
- What would you most want to leave your children? 44 answers
Also answered this
Audra McDonald, Lily Tomlin, Diane Keaton, Stephen Fry, Julie Taymor, Eugene Levy
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