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
View all 43 →
Danielle Steel
Novelist
Peacefully, in good physical health, sound of mind, still active, at a great age, with my children around me.
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.
Al Franken
Senator and comedian
Surrounded by my great-great-grandchildren.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Novelist and screenwriter; Nobel laureate in Literature, 2017
Like Joel McCrea’s character at the end of the movie Ride the High Country. (He says something about “entering his house justified,” sits up to take a last look at the scenery, then rolls contentedly out of the frame.) Or like Bill Nighy’s character at the end of our film Living.
More from Stephen Fry
View profile →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.
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.
My laziness. Not in work-related matters, but social laziness. Thank-you letters, organization, that sort of thing.
Being found out.
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
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All death & what remains questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject