A verdant landscape filled with beautiful animals of all kinds, harp music, cumulus clouds in a bright-blue sky, and happy people conversing pleasantly, sipping cold sake from homemade bamboo cups.
Identity & self
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
167 answers answered between 1999 and 2026 one of 5 in The Proust Questionnaire
Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
Verbatim recurring item in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire; two publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
On the record
Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.
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Any age
Before thirty 2
In their thirties 1
In their forties 3
In their fifties 4
In their sixties 14
Seventy and beyond 18
Warren Buffett
Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025
The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others.
Recorded
His own pledge letter, written on joining the Giving Pledge in 2010, The Giving Pledge, 2010
source ↗
Family, friends, laughter, and music so loud you feel it inside.
Ina Garten
Cookery writer and shop owner
Sundays in Paris with Jeffrey. We go to the Sunday market, make a nice lunch, drink a big bottle of Burgundy, and then take a long delicious nap. Heaven.
Is there such a thing? I guess, for me, it’s really about life’s special moments, large and small.
A picnic in my garden in Kerdalo, Brittany.
Henry R. Kravis
Financier; co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
Our wedding day is tied with the births of my three children as the best days of my life.
Being at our beach house with my family in the Bahamas.
Taking an overnight train in Europe.
Derek Sivers
Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want
I love days where I just work uninterrupted from 6am to 10pm, stopping just for a little exercise. These are my favorite days, and always have been. The more of these 16-hour workdays I have, the happier I am.
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