Dolly Parton
American singer-songwriter, actress and businesswoman
Dishonesty and being late for appointments.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Question
What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
Which book changed the way you think, and what did it change?
Taste & recommendation
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What are you still hoping to finish?
Death & what remains
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Machismo.
Rosanna Greenstreet, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2009 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 207 →People not remembering who I am.
Rafael Nadal
Spanish professional tennis player, 2001–2024
Selfishness and no respect for the others.
I don’t like fake people, impostors.
More from Alain de Botton
View profile →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.
Trying to kiss someone who wasn't interested.
Roland Barthes' 'Camera Lucida'.
Dying before my children are adults.
Some dodgy liver function tests in 2004.
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.
More on values & belief
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- What are you unwilling to optimise? 36 answers
- What have you come to understand about what it means to be human? 30 answers
- What do you need to believe in order to get through the day? 23 answers
Also answered this
Margaret Atwood, Jack Whitehall, Adam Kay, Rose Tremain, Lolita Chakrabarti, Jane Asher
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