My ability to invariably say exactly the wrong thing in any given situation.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Self-absorption.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2015 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 243 →My love of sugar.
Helena Bonham Carter
Actor
My distractibility, diminishing memory, and capacity for sustained concentration. My English master once said I had the brain of a butterfly. I feel that 40 years later, I’ve evolved into Dory from Finding Nemo.
Taking myself seriously, even in a Vanity Fair quiz.
More from Mike Wallace
View profile →I don’t have any left. I’ve already lost a son. I guess, maybe, that my wife would leave me, but she wouldn’t dare.
Self-absorption.
Nineteen thirty-nine. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Station WOOD, 20 bucks a week.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
Al Franken, Rory Stewart, Jon Sopel, Ed Koch, John Lewis, Bob Schieffer
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All identity & self questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject