Over two weeks, in a pleasant fug of palliative morphine if necessary. Just time to say a cheerful good-bye to everyone.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 10 June 2015 source ↗
The question
What kind of death would you consider a good one?Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
A fixed final question in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire, repeated verbatim across respondent pages.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
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Sally Field
Actor
When I’m extremely old during a huge family celebration where everyone is playing games and giving pre-written toasts … to me.
John Mellencamp
Singer and songwriter
I need a long and lingering death to make sure that I have time to have a deathbed conversion.
From a heart attack at the Kodak Theatre when they announce I won best actor for Terminator 3.
George Saunders
Short-story writer and novelist
Read incorrectly, that sounds like a threat. No thanks, Vanity Fair !
More from Stephen Fry
View profile →Being found out.
Lying in one of two twin hammocks on an English lawn in June. A glass of something cool and vinous is balanced on my tummy. A speaker hanging above the tree plays Glenn Gould. A Wodehouse novel is spread-eagled on my chest. I will pick it up in a moment. Oh, the other hammock is occupied by my beloved husband.
Probably Daniel Barenboim. His blend of insane talent, intellect, and profound humanitarianism is one that comes along very, very rarely. I would put Martina Navratilova and Stephen Sondheim in a tie for second.
My laziness. Not in work-related matters, but social laziness. Thank-you letters, organization, that sort of thing.
More on death & what remains
- How would you want people to remember you? 213 answers
- How close have you come to dying? 209 answers
- What song would you want played at your funeral? 178 answers
- If you had only one day left, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid? 54 answers
- What do you believe happens when we die? 50 answers
- What would you most want to leave your children? 44 answers
Also answered this
Audra McDonald, Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin, Willem Dafoe, Sally Field, Pedro Almodóvar
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