Keith McNally: What do you fear most?

The question

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.

Keith McNally

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

My children dying before me.

Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, January 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

That I’ll become a recluse with too many dogs.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, June 2019 source ↗

Paul Merson English footballer and pundit

Going back to addiction.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 January 2023 source ↗

A Broadway theater filled with nothing but critics.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, December 2021 source ↗

Tim Peake British Army Air Corps officer and astronaut

Running out of options.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 October 2022 source ↗

Cycling around Martha’s Vineyard alone in the summer of 1976.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, January 2026 source ↗

Craving the kind of success I pretend to despise.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, January 2026 source ↗

Using knowledge as a weapon.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, January 2026 source ↗

Taking an overnight train in Europe.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 20 January 2026 source ↗

Search the directory for somebody in particular.