Cyndi Lauper: What does happiness look like for you when life is going well?

The question

What does happiness look like for you when life is going well?

Originally asked

Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire

Verbatim recurring item in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire; two publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Cyndi Lauper

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Long walks with my husband. Being with my family. Making music, and writing when songs just fall together. And maybe a cannoli. Just one.

The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 3 April 2020 source ↗

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Don Rickles

Perfect happiness is having a wife who loves you and doesn’t ask for too much jewelry.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 1 April 2003 source ↗

Alan Arkin

Contentment with what I have.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 1 April 2013 source ↗

Bill Clinton 42nd President of the United States, 1993–2001

Yeah. I’m the luckiest person who ever lived, you know? I worked hard, like a demon. Some would say too hard from time to time, and I over-married, and I had a magnificent child. I have been incredibly fortunate, but I had the American Dream, and it didn’t matter to anybody that nobody in my family had ever been to college.

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗

Patrick Stewart Actor

Walking in my garden in England with my wife.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 12 April 2016 source ↗

More from Cyndi Lauper

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Question If you could alter one thing about yourself, what would it be? Identity & self

I’ve constantly been changing myself my whole life. I am what you would call “a piece of work” in progress.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 3 April 2020 source ↗

Question What thought won't let you sleep? Daily life

My son. He is a teenager.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 April 2014 source ↗

Question What trait do you most dislike in other people? Values & belief

Two-faced phony-baloneys.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2020 source ↗

Question What most recently moved you to tears? Identity & self

At a function for the True Colors Fund, where formerly homeless gay and transgender kids were telling their stories. It was heartbreaking.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 April 2014 source ↗

Question Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them? Values & belief

Aside from my mom, my husband, and my mother-in-law, Gloria Steinem, Dorothy Pitman Hughes, and RBG.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2020 source ↗

Question Which trait in yourself do you like least? Identity & self

I cut people off a lot when I talk. It’s a terrible habit.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2020 source ↗

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