The Proust Questionnaire

The Proust Questionnaire, as answered by Marcel Proust himself at age 13.



What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
To be separated from Mama

Where would you like to live?
In the country of the Ideal, or, rather, of my ideal

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
To live in contact with those I love, with the beauties of nature, with a quantity of books and music, and to have, within easy distance, a French theater

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
To a life deprived of the works of genius

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
Those of romance and poetry, those who are the expression of an ideal rather than an imitation of the real

Who are your favorite characters in history?
A mixture of Socrates, Pericles, Mahomet, Pliny the Younger and Augustin Thierry

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
A woman of genius leading an ordinary life

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Those who are more than women without ceasing to be womanly;
everything that is tender, poetic, pure and in every way beautiful

Your favorite painter?
Meissonier

Your favorite musician?
Mozart
The quality you most admire in a man?
Intelligence, moral sense

The quality you most admire in a woman?
Gentleness, naturalness, intelligence

Your favorite virtue?
All virtues that are not limited to a sect: the universal virtues

Your favorite occupation?
Reading, dreaming, and writing verse

Who would you have liked to be?
Since the question does not arise, I prefer not to answer it. All the same, I should very much have liked to be Pliny the Younger.