I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
The question
What do you fear most?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.
I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
A crippling accident.
Not working. I want to be one of those old actors on the set of Casualty at 95, who quietly passes away in the actual scene rather than at home.
Losing my makeup bag.
I’m not fond of snakes.
I was followed by a mob of fans when I was doing a photoshoot in Paris. When I signed autographs for them during a break, one remarked: “Who the fuck is Harlan Coben? I told you it wasn’t Bruce Willis.”
I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.
With a wistful smile.
I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.
A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.
We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.
Pauline McLynn, Joyce Carol Oates, Jack Whitehall, Cory Taylor, Stephen Fry, Patti Smith
Search the directory for somebody in particular.