My interest in Los Angeles.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What are you still hoping to finish?
Death & what remains
Question
What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?
Time & hindsight
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
Which book changed the way you think, and what did it change?
Taste & recommendation
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
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.
Impatience with difficult projects: panicking and giving up too quickly.
Rosanna Greenstreet, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2009 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 259 →
Rita Moreno
Actor, singer and dancer
Short-term memory.
Being judgmental.
Jacqueline Wilson
English novelist
Catastrophising.
More from Alain de Botton
View profile →To make www.theschooloflife.com a global brand (to open a branch in Australia). To make www.living-architecture.co.uk flourish. To write good books.
Be ambitious beyond merely dreaming of the first book being published. Already now try to imagine where you want this to go, where you want to be at 60.
Learning to give up on perfection may be just about the most romantic move any of us could make.
Roland Barthes' 'Camera Lucida'.
Fear, anxiety, longing, love, art, beauty.
Trying to kiss someone who wasn't interested.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
Richard Ford, David Hare, Margaret Atwood, J.K. Rowling, Jia Tolentino, Judy Blume
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- All identity & self questions
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