Losing a loved one.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Identity & self
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.
To be abandoned.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, March 2010 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →Something happening to one of my children.
Drowning. The feeling of not being able to take a breath. I’m sure my therapist would have something to say about the deep psychological reasons for it.
Paul McKenna
British hypnotist and TV personality
My wife dying. I wouldn’t know how to go on.
More from Luise Rainer
View profile →To be dishonest. Sometimes people have to be dishonest in order not to hurt, but if someone is basically dishonest, that is a different matter.
My inferiority complex.
In the mountains, climbing into beautiful places—anything that has to do with nature. I feel best in nature or near nature. And I was most happy, of course, when I was with my husband and we were in beautiful landscapes.
First of all, to be in love. The second way of being very happy is to be able to get the best out of yourself, whatever it is.
Mandela. Also, artists and painters. I admire people who are creative.
More on identity & self
- Which trait do you most dislike in yourself? 243 answers
- What did you want to be when you were growing up? 195 answers
- What most recently made you cry? 193 answers
- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 158 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 111 answers
- What are you most proud of? 103 answers
Also answered this
Sharon Corr, Fran Lebowitz, Jean Smart, Tom Burke, Keir Starmer, Kerry Godliman
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- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
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