The question

What is your greatest fear?

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.

Henry R. Kravis

Financier; co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Oh, all the time. We have a fear all the time. But that’s what keeps us going, that’s what keeps us focused. You have to have a fear. People who say, “I have no fear. I’m not afraid of ever failing,” are kidding themselves. Sometimes it’s the fear of failure, of not wanting to fail, that makes people as great as they are. I know that’s what pushes me, a lot.

Academy of Achievement, 12 February 1991 source ↗

Others on this question

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Basketball player and author
Years ago, before I had my current manager, I was taken advantage of by people I’d trusted with my finances. That’s made me especially sensitive to the prospect of financial ruin. I’m constantly advising young athletes to be vigilant when it comes to whom you trust with your finances.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2020 source ↗
Margaret Atwood Novelist, poet and critic
That human beings will follow their stupid and greedy side, rather than their smart side, and go down the plughole. We’re circling the rim.
Recorded Helen Bownass, Five Minute Philosopher, Stylist, 15 October 2019 source ↗

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