My children dying before me.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What do you value most in your friends?
Relationships
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
How would you like to die?
Death & what remains
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
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.
Losing another child. (I lost one of my sons to suicide when he was 19.)
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, July 2012 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →
Serena Williams
United States professional tennis player, 1995–2022
I don’t think about my greatest fear.
Bonnie Raitt
Singer and guitarist
That injustice, ignorance, and fascism win.
Sally Mann
Photographer
The loss of a child.
More from Danielle Steel
View profile →Loyalty, kindness, honesty, trustworthiness, reliability.
My agent Mort Janklow, Sidney Poitier, and Barbara Walters.
Peacefully, in good physical health, sound of mind, still active, at a great age, with my children around me.
Not always standing up for myself enough.
The first 10 years of my marriage, when my children were small.
Healthy, happy children. A wonderful, loving partner with whom to share my life.
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
Jane Asher, Zadie Smith, Jack Whitehall, Carrie Fisher, Judy Blume, Pauline McLynn
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- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
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