My Proust Questionnaire (Taken From My Sister)

My Proust Questionnaire

What is your idea of happiness?

Do you know that feeling you get when you're in a given moment of time and you know that you'll remember that moment for the rest of your life? When that is shared with the ones you love, that is the purest form of happiness I have ever and no doubt will ever experience

The qualities you most like in a man?
Courage. When someone is willing to hold true to what he believes in the face of the most casual everyday interactions and again in the face of the most difficult adversity he has ever faced, that is rare and to be lauded

The qualities you most like in a woman?
The ability to suffer well even when that suffering crushes all of your hopes and dreams. Then to be able to turn to those you know or don't know and give them a smile. My mom is the most courageous well-suffering woman I will ever know

What do you most value in your friends?
The ability to dole out tough love. Sadly, I have very few of these and for those I do have, I am eternally grateful.

Your most marked characteristic?
My atrociously corny sense of humor

What is your principle defect?
My atrociously corny sense of humor

What is your favorite occupation?
One that makes getting out of bed on a Monday easy

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
To see the world lose sight of their passions for the sake of doing what is conventional

What would you like to be?
A writer

In what country would you like to live?
Italy

What is your favorite color?
Navy

What are your favorite flowers?

Cherry blossoms

What is your favorite bird?

Eagle

Who are your favorite prose writers?
Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Richard Yates

Who are your favorite poets?

William Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost (in that order)

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

Hal (Henry IV), Will Hunting, Atticus Finch

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Scout, Monica Vitti in just about any of her movies, Vesper Lynd

Who are your favorite composers?
Chopin (Pollini), Grieg, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck

Who are your favorite painters?
Caravaggio, Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian

Who are your heroes in real life?
My mom, Tim Keller, Rahm Emanuel

Who are your favorite heroes/heroines of history?
Lincoln, Paul Newman, Clinton

What are your favorite names?
John, James, Paul

What is it you most dislike?
People who are knowingly inconsiderate

What historical figures do you most despise?
Hitler?

What event in military history do you most admire?
Cuban Missile Crisis

What reform do you most admire?
14th Amendment

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
Photographic memory

How would you like to die?
Peacefully in my sleep at a time when all of my loved ones would be satisfied with the length and quality of the life that I lived

What is your present state of mind?
Unceasingly ambivalent

What fault do you indulge the most?
My penchant for sweets and desserts

What is your motto?
Sadly, as of now:

"All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain"

-Cormac McCarthy