I’m walking down a street in New York, the sun is shining, I’m on my way to see friends who are chosen family—and I’ve just written a couple of pages that I like.
The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 24 September 2020 source ↗
The question
What does happiness look like for you when life is going well?Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
Verbatim recurring item in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire; two publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I’m walking down a street in New York, the sun is shining, I’m on my way to see friends who are chosen family—and I’ve just written a couple of pages that I like.
The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 24 September 2020 source ↗
Eating breakfast foods at a time of the day other than breakfast. Pancakes for dinner—I’m happy.
Under sail somewhere with my children, Mavis and Duncan, and my husband, Roderick, with no agenda.
Being aware and accepting of whatever the state of my mind happens to be at the moment (even if that state is unhappy).
Being with my husband, David, and the boys.
I behaved badly with two old lovers. Years later, when I took one to lunch to apologise, it made it worse.
Dying just a millisecond before I was about to say something I really wanted the people I love to hear.
First a horse rancher, then a dancer.
Feeling you want someone else’s welfare as much and sometimes more than your own.
In my 30s, I was staring at a pair of expensive boots in a shop window when the photographer Gordon Parks came up behind me. He instantly understood, because he grew up even poorer than me; he made me buy them on my credit card.
Being a salesgirl in a baby shop where the others said things like, “He’s Jewish, but she’s American.” Also, after college, being a waitress in London, and trying to make change in the old money of shillings and pence.
Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Walters, Malala Yousafzai, Bill Clinton, Bob Schieffer, Barack Obama
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