I’m quite scared of bats. I’m just seeing rats with wings – no, thanks.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
Question
What do you value most in your friends?
Relationships
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
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.
That I’ll never work again.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, May 2012 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →
Romesh Ranganathan
English actor and comedian
My children ending up anything like me.
Drowning. The feeling of not being able to take a breath. I’m sure my therapist would have something to say about the deep psychological reasons for it.
Audra McDonald
Singer and actor
Balloons. I have a big phobia of balloons. Big.
More from Mary Tyler Moore
View profile →Getting to the point in life where I can accept that the truth is there is no perfect happiness.
Their responsibility to the friendship.
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.
I think when we were doing The Mary Tyler Moore Show. That was the first time that I was able to, on a regular basis, be funny.
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
Shirley Manson, Kevin Rowland, Christopher Hitchens, Mel Brooks, Ed Koch, Lena Dunham
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