To be stuck in the past.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What do you need to believe in order to get through the day?
Values & belief
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
Which writers or artists most influenced your work?
Taste & recommendation
Question
What have you come to understand about what it means to be human?
Values & belief
Question
What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
Values & belief
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
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.
Bad things happening to my children and grandchildren.
Christopher Kemp, Interview, Salon, 12 December 2001 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 282 →My greatest fear is going out onstage and having the audience just stare at me.
Rita Moreno
Actor, singer and dancer
The thought that I might die with unresolved conflicts.
Losing family, friends, and loved ones.
More from Kurt Vonnegut
View profile →Well, again, getting back to Nietzsche’s statement, as a person of deep faith, I obviously believe in something in the end. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a great big something.
Fine, thank you. I am quite recovered. It was almost a near-death experience. Things weren't going so well for a little while, but I feel strong again.
I am from a family of artists. Here I am making a living in the arts, and it has not been a rebellion. It’s as though I had taken over the family Esso station. My ancestors were all in the arts, so I’m simply making my living in the customary family way.
In our lives, we do our best to serve our community well, behave decently, and treat people well.
If I were a religious person, my first question would be "Where the hell is God?" But I never expected him to be on the job.
I was the third Saab dealer in the United States — you could have a dealership just by asking for one. Had to put up my own money for five cars. Terrible car then, may I say.
More on identity & self
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- What most recently made you cry? 194 answers
- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 166 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 121 answers
- What are you most proud of? 117 answers
Also answered this
Margaret Atwood, J.K. Rowling, David Hare, Judy Blume, Carrie Fisher, Jack Whitehall
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- All identity & self questions
- The The Proust Questionnaire questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
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