Not doing the above.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
If you had only one day left to live, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid doing?
Death & what remains
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
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.
Dying of the same awful disease that took my mother – a particularly aggressive form of dementia called Pick’s disease.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 May 2022 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 266 →Being run over by a cyclist on a pavement or pedestrian crossing, because it’s nearly happened too frequently.
Dying too young, and spiders.
Walking into a room filled with friends and family singing “Happy Birthday” to me and I am completely naked.
More from Shirley Manson
View profile →A ballerina. I remain rather disappointed that I became a rock star instead.
By the sea. I would like to be on the beach in Kerala, I would like to be on the beach at Yellowcraigs in Scotland, and then at a really good table, drinking really good wine, eating delicious food, and discussing things I am passionate about with people that I am passionate about.
Like a cosy cloud of softness coupled with an orthopaedic mattress underneath.
Myself. I have never been harder on anyone else.
My dog’s trust in me.
Greta Thunberg, a brightly coloured little bird in a coalmine, desperately sounding the alarm for others while laying her childhood to waste.
More on identity & self
- Which trait do you most dislike in yourself? 252 answers
- What did you want to be when you were growing up? 204 answers
- What most recently made you cry? 193 answers
- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 161 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 114 answers
- What are you most proud of? 109 answers
Also answered this
Dolly Parton, Rita Wilson, Jason Manford, Patti Smith, Johnny Flynn, Bruce Dickinson
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Explore further
- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject