Charlie Higson: Which trait in yourself do you like least?

The question

Which trait in yourself do you like least?

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.

Charlie Higson

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

I can be horribly smug and conceited, and yet always in the back of my mind is the thought that things could go terribly wrong at any moment.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 October 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 239 →

Christian Louboutin

I never let it go.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, September 2021 source ↗

Martha Stewart

Any type of indecision.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2009 source ↗

Mary Tyler Moore

Well, first of all I’d like to change the word “deplore” to “dislike.” I guess that I’m almost a hermit; I don’t enjoy going out that much, and so I tend to take my happiness from the joys of my home and my husband.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, May 2012 source ↗

Lucy Beaumont

Thinking that I’m right when I’m wrong. But not only that – being able to convince other people I’m right and then finding out I’m wrong.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 October 2024 source ↗