Proust Questionnaire: A's answers

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On Sun, 08 Apr 12 19:27:03 UTC A answered the Proust Questionnaire (click on a question to read other answers):

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?: Uncomfortable shoes
Where would you like to live?: Germany, of course, the fun part of Berlin
What is your idea of earthly happiness?: Being a 19th century Oxford don
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?: To my need to consume coffee every morning, religiously
Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?: Sebastian Flyte, Lucy Honeychurch, Nestor, Hadrian in Marguerite Yourcenar
Who are your favorite characters in history?: Pliny the Elder, Protagoras the Sophist, Ole Worm, Auden (if he counts as historical yet), Quentin Crisp
Who are your favorite heroines in real life?: Rotem and Jesse, Susan Sontag
Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?: Orlando (if s/he counts), Brunhilde, Charlotte in the Golden Bowl, Barbara Pym women
Your favorite painter?: Hoefnagel
Your favorite musician?: Handel
The quality you most admire in a man?: The ability to carry on a conversation with me without seeming stupid
The quality you most admire in a woman?: As I said, I don't fuck the stupid
Your favorite virtue?: Knowledge of the classical languages
Your favorite occupation?: Thinking
Who would you have liked to be?: a 16th century antiquarian with a large budget and a gardener
Your most marked characteristic?: My manic intellectualism
What do you most value in your friends?: Understanding
What is your principle defect?: Lack of tact
What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?: To live without knowing beauty
What would you like to be?: A Humanist, A Writer, A Lover, A Friend
What is your favorite color?: violently bright orange
What is your favorite flower?: I like cacti, succulents in particular
What is your favorite bird?: the raven
Who are your favorite prose writers?: E.M. Forster, other incredibly British novelists
Who are your favorite poets?: Auden, Philip Sidney, Virgil, James Merrill, Keats
Who are your heroes in real life?: The heroes died in the golden age
Who are your favorite heroines of history?: Isabella Merian, Vita Sackville-West, Susan Sontag, Rosalind Franklin
What are your favorite names?: ostentatiously Greek ones
What is it you most dislike?: pain
What historical figures do you most despise?: emperors Tacitus and Suetonius dislike, the Caesars first among them
What event in military history do you most admire?: Scipio Africanus' battles in the Punic Wars
What natural gift would you most like to possess?: tall, gangly willow-like beauty
How would you like to die?: whilst lecturing
What is your present state of mind?: Vague anxiety about work not yet done
What is your motto?: Beauty is Truth, Truth, Beauty

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