The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. Here is the basic Proust Questionnaire as answered by yours truly, the good doctor..
1.) What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A cocktail party with my friends
2.) What is your greatest fear?
One of the girls getting seriously injured.
3.) What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Impatience with others.
4.) What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Intentional lateness.
5.) Which living person do you most admire?
Jimmy Carter
6.) What is your greatest extravagance?
Finding the time to write
7.) What is your current state of mind?
Mild Elation with a hint of creeping dread
8.) What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Religious Piety
9.) On what occasion do you lie?
To protect the feeling of others
10.) What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My expanding waistline.
11.) Which living person do you most despise?
The current Majority Leader of the Senate
12.) What is the quality you most like in a man?
Loyalty
13) What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Ability to laugh spontaneously at my lame jokes
14.) Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Like
15.) What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Besides my children, Mrs Mao (she knows who she is.)
16.) When and where were you happiest?
See the answer to question #1
17.) Which talent would you most like to have?
Dance like Fred Astaire.
18.) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
To get back the metabolism I had as a younger man.
19.) What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Not to have completely messed up my children (a work in progress.)
20.) If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
As a family dog.
21.) Where would you most like to live?
When I currently live: New York City
22.) What is your most treasured possession?
The love of my friends and family
23.) What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
The inevitable loss of friends and family
24.)What is your favorite occupation?
Film archivist.
25.) What is your most marked characteristic?
Middling sense of humor
26.) What do you most value in your friends?
Empathy
27.) Who are your favorite writers?
Fitzgerald, Proust and Virginia Woolf
28.) Who is your hero of fiction?
Hercules Poirot
29.) Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Adlai Stevenson II
30.) Who are your heroes in real life?
MLK, Julia Child, Groucho and Dorothy Day
31.) What are your favorite names?
My own
32.) What is it that you most dislike?
Mean people suck.
33.) What is your greatest regret?
I will never see the director's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons
34.) How would you like to die?
Old, in my sleep and in no pain
35.) What is your motto?
We make plans and God laughs.
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