Proust Questionnaire: ClaireW's answers

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On Sun, 25 Jul 10 00:58:57 UTC ClaireW (65) answered the Proust Questionnaire (click on a question to read other answers):

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?: To have failed any of my children.
Where would you like to live?: A small house on a large lot, in a quiet area near a major public library.
What is your idea of earthly happiness?: To be with my children and know that they are all living good lives.
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?: Honest ignorance.
Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?: Mystery heroes who suffer depression, remorse over past failings, or misgivings regarding their work.
Who are your favorite characters in history?: People who were enlighted ahead of their time, the Buddha, Gallileo, Darwin ...
Who are your favorite heroines in real life?: I honour most those women who sacrifice to repair the harm done to children by men.
Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?: Women who are filled with justified rage.
Your favorite painter?: Goya
Your favorite musician?: Bach
The quality you most admire in a man?: Gentleness, wit.
The quality you most admire in a woman?: Fearlessness, intelligence.
Your favorite virtue?: Empathy.
Your favorite occupation?: Reading.
Who would you have liked to be?: Shakespeare.
Your most marked characteristic?: Laughing, talking.
What do you most value in your friends?: Tollerating my neglect of them.
What is your principle defect?: My neglect of friends.
What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?: Harm to any of my children.
What would you like to be?: A braver version of who I already am.
What is your favorite color?: Any colour that seems to glow from a flower.
What is your favorite flower?: Poppies.
What is your favorite bird?: The Meadow Lark.
Who are your favorite prose writers?: Annie Dillard, James Lee Burke
Who are your favorite poets?: Poetry escapes me, but I love "In Flander's Fields"
Who are your heroes in real life?: My psychologist, my children.
Who are your favorite heroines of history?: Florence Nightingale, though she must have been dreadful to live with.
What are your favorite names?: Hyphenated French names.
What is it you most dislike?: Bullies.
What historical figures do you most despise?: The obvious ones: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, 'Doc' Duvalier, Pinochet, all the tyrants.
What event in military history do you most admire?: The British rescue of the Allied troops at Dunkirk.
What natural gift would you most like to possess?: The courage to become a writer.
How would you like to die?: Without fear.
What is your present state of mind?: Anxious. Lonely.
What is your motto?: The cruelest reality is still kinder than the sweetest delusion.

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