Identity & self

What are you most proud of?

109 answers answered between 1930 and 2026 one of 5 in 73 Questions

Originally asked

Vogue, to one guest at a time, on camera, 73 Questions

Vogue's 73 Questions repeatedly asks respondents to select the work, relationship, or achievement that makes them proudest.

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On the record

Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Wynton Marsalis Trumpeter and composer; artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center
I’m the most proud when I get something from cities, or people. At first I was against awards, you know. I would always say, “This is so fake. The people who vote on this stuff, they never listen to the music.” But for me it’s when I received awards or something from the city. Just to go to somebody’s house and eat. Or people come and say, “We spent our anniversary checking you out,” or “We were making love to one of your records, and we had a child!” See that kind of stuff makes me feel good. Like you get a key to the city and the people are really into it. Not just, “Oh, let’s give him the key to the city because he got some publicity.” It will be some people you knew, and you were there at their school, and you worked in the community.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, New York, New York, 8 January 1991 source ↗
Philip Johnson Architect; first winner of the Pritzker Prize
I don’t know. I know the ones that are the greatest triumphs, like the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington D.C. that I worked on with the owners. It was a real collaboration and there was no budget, no money involved. It was just, “If we like that better, we’ll do it that way.” So I had total freedom and it was a simple project to build a little museum, and the owner and I worked together and it was pure delight from beginning to end and it came out very well.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, New York, New York, 28 February 1992 source ↗
Johnny Cash Singer and songwriter
I’m most proud that, after all I’ve been through, God has let me be alive and well today, and still with June Carter.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Glacier Park, Montana, 25 June 1993 source ↗
Bob Woodward Investigative reporter and author; associate editor of The Washington Post
I don’t know whether I feel pride. I think pride is hubris. I think it is an emotion that if you bask in it, it’s like hate; it will destroy you. So I don’t make those kinds of assessments. I like what I do. I am repeatedly struck by how I have missed part of the story, always.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Washington D.C., 1 May 2003 source ↗
Haruki Murakami Novelist, short-story writer and translator
Yes. I didn't want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that's a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I'm proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.
Recorded Stephen Phelan, Face-to-face interview, first published in the Sunday Herald, The Sunday Herald, January 2005 source ↗
Cheryl Strayed Author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things
My mother would have been proud of my hike. I would love for my own children to have such adventures someday. I hope they do. I hope the word that comes to them when they see a photograph of me in twenty years is go.
Recorded Emily Temple / Flavorpill readers, Flavorpill Book Club, Flavorwire, 25 May 2012 source ↗
Stellan Skarsgård Swedish actor
I am not a nationalist in any way, and I hate flag waving, and I don’t think much good has come out of nationalism. I am proud of Scandinavia in the sense that we have actually managed to create a very tolerant and human society, which is very livable. They are of course deconstructing it and privatizing everything now, but there has been some achievement up there, in that cold north.
Recorded The Talks interview, 19 September 2012 source ↗
Lars Ulrich Danish drummer; co-founder of Metallica
The one thing I’ll always hold my head up high about is that 32 years later, it’s been quite a ride – it’s been a pretty pure ride, a pretty honest ride, a pretty straight ride – we haven’t done things for ulterior motives or tried to do things for commercial gains or for this or for that, so I feel pretty proud of all of it.
Recorded The Talks interview, 21 November 2013 source ↗
Alejandro González Iñárritu Mexican film director; winner of Academy Awards for Birdman and The Revenant
I don’t regret having done it at all. I think everything that I went through was worth it. I am very proud. But I would not do it again.
Recorded The Talks interview, 27 January 2016 source ↗
Norman Foster Architect; founder of Foster + Partners and winner of the Pritzker Prize
I would hope that there’s a recognition that in some way or another it has contributed to the breaking down of barriers. Somehow deinstitutionalizing some of those buildings. They might be workplaces. They might be cultural buildings, where under one roof you have the contemplation of great works of art and the studying of the history of art. That might be linked to a degree of innovation, harnessing technology to a good end. I’m bringing an element of joy and uplift to spirits.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, London, England, 18 October 2017 source ↗
Dereck Joubert Wildlife film-maker and conservationist; National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence
There are a lot of images to be proud of. There are a lot of images that I’m very happy with, in the film context, that were very hard to do or that happened in the right moment, and that were the embodiment of the fact that I engulf myself in the spirit of an understanding of those animals at that time.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Washington, D.C., 18 June 2018 source ↗
Yo-Yo Ma Cellist
Mr. Rogers lives on. There’s so many legions of people that grew up with him, and they’re still in a way growing up with him. He, of course, was a minister. ... And the children of the show, in the neighborhood, are his ministry. And what a beautiful thing that is. So I, to this day, when someone says, “What are you most proud to have accomplished?” I am so proud to have been a part of that.
Recorded Krista Tippett, On Being, recorded before a live audience, On Being with Krista Tippett, 26 July 2018 source ↗
Goran Bregović Bosnian composer and musician; former Bijelo Dugme leader and film composer
One of the things I’m proudest of is that today is a Friday, and hundreds of Gypsy bands will be playing for tips, and they will play a lot of my songs. I like the idea that because of that, some kid will have marmalade on his bread.
Recorded Robin Denselow, Guardian interview on Three Letters from Sarajevo, The Guardian, 27 February 2019 source ↗
Olga Tokarczuk Novelist and essayist; Nobel laureate in literature
Yeah, I’m very happy. Of course I’m very happy, and I am proud that I am with Peter Handke , and that we, both of us, we are from central Europe. It’s really very meaningful for me, this Nobel Prize is going to central Europe. I’m really, really very proud.
Recorded Adam Smith, Telephone interview following the announcement of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, The Nobel Prize, 10 October 2019 source ↗
Bong Joon-ho Film director and screenwriter
I wanted to create a very delicate and detailed film where you would feel like you could even smell every single character.
Recorded The Talks interview, 12 February 2020 source ↗
Sonya Yoncheva Opera singer
I was really happy because Rolex did something that was almost impossible: to organize it during a pandemic, to do it at such a high level, and to provide this financial aid to all these people… I was really proud.
Recorded The Talks interview, 27 July 2022 source ↗
David Hare Playwright and screenwriter
The lecture that I’m proudest of [reprinted in the book as “In the Oxford Madrasa”] is the one that I gave in 2016 about conservatism being in a hopeless philosophical mess.
Recorded Matthew Reisz, Books interview, The Guardian, 7 August 2022 source ↗
Bronwyn Katz South African artist and sculptor; co-founder of the iQhiya collective
Yes, exactly. The collective isn’t active anymore, but at the time, as black female artists, and also as students, we didn’t feel particularly acknowledged or seen as significant. So we thought, if we see each other, everyone else will be forced to see us, too. I felt so proud to be a part of something like that, and seeing the results that came from it.
Recorded The Talks, Emerging Masters series, 8 November 2023 source ↗
Leonor Espinosa Colombian chef; founder of the Bogotá restaurant Leo and World's Best Female Chef 2022
Getting Colombia to be recognized for its gastronomy, to have the eyes of the world on our cooking, is a great achievement that I am very proud of today.
Recorded The Talks interview, 7 February 2024 source ↗
Shirley Manson Scottish singer and songwriter; lead vocalist of Garbage
It was such a beautiful summer’s night and I had pink hair and my band was doing really well and my mum was there, my mum was still alive. It was very magical for me and to get the honour of my city, to be blessed by their respect, it was delicious.
Recorded Niall Doherty, Louder feature interview, Louder (Classic Rock), 23 June 2024 source ↗

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