Boards
The Proust Questionnaire
In late 19th Century France, it was la vogue to wile away the evening assaulting your friends with a battery of questions about themselves in an effort to mine out some aspect of their personality that you weren't already familiar with. It was discovered that these questions could readily be applied to total strangers, actors and celebrities with much the same effect. The first celebrity to which these questions have been asked was a spotty little toerag named Marcel Proust. Aged 13, he had just finished writing 'A La Recherche du Temps Perdu' - an account of the time he had spent all day picking his nose and torturing small animals. As befitting a boy with such a creative imagination, his answers to the following questionnaire age 13 turned him into the toast of France. However, it is not his answers which concern us (most of which were quite shit), but yours. Allez:
1) Your most marked characteristic?
2) The quality you most like in a man?
3) The quality you most like in a woman?
4) What do you most value in your friends?
5) What is your principle defect?
6) What is your favorite occupation?
7) What is your dream of happiness?
8) What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
9) What would you like to be?
10) In what country would you like to live?
11) What is your favorite color?
12) What is your favorite flower?
13) What is your favorite bird?
14) Who are your favorite prose writers?
15) Who are your favorite poets?
16) Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
17) Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
18) Who are your favorite composers?
19) Who are your favorite painters?
20) Who are your heroes in real life?
21) Who are your favorite heroines of history?
22) What are your favorite names?
23) What is it you most dislike?
24) What historical figures do you most despise?
25) What event in military history do you most admire?
26) What reform do you most admire?
27) What natural gift would you most like to possess?
28) How would you like to die?
29) What is your present state of mind?
30) To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
31) What is your motto?