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 become very anxious if I think I’ve hurt someone.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 January 2026 source ↗
Insanity. I am on a recovery programme – clean from drugs and drink for many years – and if I stopped doing all that stuff I’d go crazy pretty quick and pick up drugs again, because I was a real fucking addict.
That I will suddenly lose my sense of humor, and everyone knows it but me.
Losing my mind.
The current occupant of the White House.
Moments of vanity, carelessness and unkindness.
Living in a ski resort.
The US election showed me that I had trapped myself in wishful thinking.
Surprise. Smiles. Courage. Safety.
Carelessness of truth and others.
A painting of a man who was killed on the Dutch coast in 1600.
Charles Osgood, Gloria Steinem, Bob Schieffer, Malala Yousafzai, Monica Lewinsky, Caroline Lucas
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