Harlan Coben
American author
I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
How would you like to die?
Death & what remains
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
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.
A crippling accident.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, June 2014 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 284 →Nuclear holocaust.
Marina Abramović
Performance artist
To be eaten by a shark.
Both my grandmother and my mother got dementia. My grandmother has passed away. My mother is in a home. Dementia is my biggest fear because it robs you of the very thing that makes life special.
More from Willem Dafoe
View profile →Punctuality (outside of work, of course).
How doesn’t matter—it’s when that matters. When I’m ready!
Discovering Rome on my scooter with my wife when we first met.
Bob Dylan: his great gift as a poet and musician, his long, incorruptible career—and he continues to tour constantly.
More on identity & self
- Which trait do you most dislike in yourself? 260 answers
- What did you want to be when you were growing up? 228 answers
- What most recently made you cry? 195 answers
- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 167 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 121 answers
- What are you most proud of? 118 answers
Also answered this
Leelee Kimmel, Dolly Parton, Jane Asher, John Waters, Joseph Fiennes, Robert De Niro
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
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