The question
Which trait in yourself do you like least?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.
My distractibility, diminishing memory, and capacity for sustained concentration. My English master once said I had the brain of a butterfly. I feel that 40 years later, I’ve evolved into Dory from Finding Nemo.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2020 source ↗
Standing up while eating.
Feeling and being unfocused.
Believing in, even admiring, people who refuse to believe in me, and not believing people who do.
I still say yes to too many things.
At the right time, and like my father—utterly without fear or pain, at home, with all whom I love. It was his last lesson as a parent to me.
The loss of anything, be it a loved one or a faculty—my sight, hearing, or mind.
In my bed, a hot-water bottle on my tummy, the windows are open, reading a book that I’m already into, chocolate at hand, all with the knowledge that everyone I love and know is happy.
Both of the days my children were born. It was like I’d stepped through a mirror and everything turned Technicolor.
My mother. She’s 85 and rather than diminishing with age, she keeps surprising and growing more marvelous. She finds fun when most are jaded, wonder when most are cynical, and is curious when most are bored. She gave me life and continues to show me how to live it daily. And I know that everyone who meets her thinks the same.
Dolly Parton, Julie Andrews, Jane Asher, Willem Dafoe, Joseph Fiennes, Robert De Niro
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