Fear of flying.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
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.
Believing in, even admiring, people who refuse to believe in me, and not believing people who do.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 October 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
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Bill Clinton
42nd President of the United States, 1993–2001
I thought that I had lost for a reason, and I thought that I was a little unseasoned and immature, and I had — the way I made decisions my first term, I got a lot done, but I was better at doing what I wanted to do than listening to other people about what they thought I should be doing or how they thought I ought to be doing it.
I lose bank cards, I’m untidy, I get bored very quickly.
Gayle King
Broadcaster
I’m disorganized.
More from Lemn Sissay
View profile →I would build relationships. I would remember people’s significant moments. I would not fear closeness.
That I can’t write.
I spent my life searching for family. I travelled around the world to look each one of them in the eye. Unfortunately, but understandably, for most of them, I am their biggest disappointment.
Also my most triumphant: 2017 at the Royal Court. Julie Hesmondhalgh reads my psychologist’s report over two hours. Every excruciating intimate word of it. Extreme verbatim theatre. One night only.
I made a suicide attempt at 12 or 13 years old.
The Prince and Princess of Wales for not knowing when to leave their home.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
Nick Frost, Keren Woodward, Carly Simon, Whoopi Goldberg, Rosalind Eleazar, Rebecca Lucy Taylor
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