A Broadway theater filled with nothing but critics.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Identity & self
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
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.
My lips are sealed.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2003 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →Danger to my children. And tidal waves.
When I was little, a couple of rapes took place in Glasgow. I remember my mum saying to walk in the middle of the pavement, and to this day I am very conscious of where I am.
Jane Asher
English actress and author
I’ve always been frightened of the dark. I sometimes wonder whether it stems from being away filming from the age of five. I can remember being devastatingly homesick and having a little nightlight I used to look at to reassure myself things were all right.
More from Aretha Franklin
View profile →My weight, but I’m working on it. I will return!
It’s never going to be absolutely perfect. There will always be something you would change if you could.
Right here, right now.
More on identity & self
- Which trait do you most dislike in yourself? 243 answers
- What did you want to be when you were growing up? 195 answers
- What most recently made you cry? 193 answers
- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 158 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 111 answers
- What are you most proud of? 103 answers
Also answered this
Seth Meyers, Fran Lebowitz, Gayle King, Andrew O’Hagan, Willem Dafoe, Rita Moreno
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject