Proust Questionnaire: Apollo's answers

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On Tue, 26 Jul 11 04:07:34 UTC Apollo (58) answered the Proust Questionnaire (click on a question to read other answers):

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?: To be alone without friends.
Where would you like to live?: In a large civilized city with bookstores, clubs and churches in walking distance.
What is your idea of earthly happiness?: To be loved and understood by those I love and understand.
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?: Gossip; forgetfulness; being late.
Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?: Eugene de Rastingnac (Pere Goriot); Lord Peter Wimsey;
Who are your favorite characters in history?: Justinian the Great, Camile Saint-Saens, Pope Nicolas V, Lancelot Andrewes, Charles V, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Thomas Jefferson, Walter Benjamin
Who are your favorite heroines in real life?: My Mother, the public librarian when I was a boy,
Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?: Babette Hersant (Babette's Feast), author Dorothy L. Sayers, the nine Muses, the women in the Bronte & Austen novels
Your favorite painter?: Pierre Bonnard, Velazquez, Turner,
Your favorite musician?: Mozart
The quality you most admire in a man?: Intelligence, love of goodness, wit, manliness.
The quality you most admire in a woman?: Intelligence, discretion, wit, womanliness.
Your favorite virtue?: love
Your favorite occupation?: reading, cooking, listening to music, conversation.
Who would you have liked to be?: No one else.
What do you most value in your friends?: Faithfulness, love, patience.
What is your principle defect?: sadness & depression
What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?: to be without friends
What would you like to be?: less burdened by sadness
What is your favorite color?: deep coral, black
What is your favorite flower?: poppies & wildflowers
What is your favorite bird?: any songbird
Who are your favorite prose writers?: Borges, Proust, Ronald Knox, Evelyn Waugh, Sydney Smith, George Steiner
Who are your favorite poets?: Edith Sitwell, Borges, George Herbert
Who are your heroes in real life?: My friends, my parents
Who are your favorite heroines of history?: parish secretaries, My mother, Queen Marie Antoinette,
What are your favorite names?: Anastasia, Tatiana, Constanine, Serapion, David, Alan,
What is it you most dislike?: My Timidity
What historical figures do you most despise?: Tyrants, bad clergy
What event in military history do you most admire?: The Battle of Laponto
What natural gift would you most like to possess?: A rich sonorous voice
How would you like to die?: asleep
What is your present state of mind?: anxious
What is your motto?: "Be Aware of the Messengers" (Original in Greek from Plotinus)

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