Swiftly, painlessly, and old.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 22 August 2012 source ↗
The question
What kind of death would you consider a good one?Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
A fixed final question in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire, repeated verbatim across respondent pages.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
View all 43 →
Lily Tomlin
Comedian and actor
In my sleep, “dreaming android dreams of electric sheep.”
Joan Rivers
Comedian
Coming offstage after a five-minute standing ovation, falling into the arms of my lover, and having the doctor look at me and say, “This is impossible! She looks much too young to go!”
Sally Field
Actor
When I’m extremely old during a huge family celebration where everyone is playing games and giving pre-written toasts … to me.
Gloria Steinem
Writer and feminist organiser
Sometimes when I’m on a plane, as I often am, the weather is rough and we’re worried about going down. I think: If I hold the hand of the person next to me, I’ll be holding everyone’s hand. Like my dear friend, the late Wilma Mankiller, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, I want to know: I’m going to the other side of the mountain.
More from Terry Gross
View profile →A glass of wine, a good dinner with my husband, and a day ahead of me without a deadline is close enough.
Living with severe chronic pain, or forgetting the name of the person I’m interviewing.
The inability to stop talking about themselves when they’re not being interviewed.
Their willingness to put up with my endless explanations about why I can’t see them because I’m under deadline.
More on death & what remains
- How would you want people to remember you? 213 answers
- How close have you come to dying? 209 answers
- What song would you want played at your funeral? 178 answers
- If you had only one day left, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid? 54 answers
- What do you believe happens when we die? 50 answers
- What would you most want to leave your children? 44 answers
Also answered this
Elmore Leonard, Julie Taymor, Karl Ove Knausgård, Henry Marsh, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Zadie Smith
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- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
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