Clarity when I am writing.
The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 24 July 2024 source ↗
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.
Others on this question
View all 158 →My family. Together in a room with a sax, a piano, and a Ping-Pong table.
Happiness is going to come and go, but to have a chance at intermittent happiness you need to be free from fear. In our culture, in our day, we can lose sight of what a rare gift that is: to live free from fear
To be wildly, desperately, carelessly, nakedly in love, of course. Crazy, obsessive love: brooding, baying at the moon, writing daily missives to the adored. Who wouldn’t want this? Even though the crash is painful.
Sitting in a living room with my sister, Pat Thaler, and her seven grandchildren and just talking with them. They range in age from 9 to 21 years old.
More from Patti Smith
View profile →Tramping through the woods in South Jersey in 1957 with my dog Bambi.
I would love to have a better sense of physical balance.
Collapse of the imagination.
Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned about doing good work and protect your work. […] Protect your work and if you build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.
Recorded
Christian Lund, Louisiana Literature festival, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 24 August 2012, Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 24 August 2012
source ↗
The artist Gerhard Richter.
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