Marcel Proust Questionnaire

What is your favorite virtue?

What are your favorite qualities in a man?

What are your favorite qualities in a woman?

What do you most value in your friends?

What do you enjoy doing most?

What is your chief characteristic?

What is your idea of happiness?

What is your idea of misery?

What would be your greatest misfortune?

If not yourself, who would you like to be?

Where would you most like to live?

Who are your favorite authors?

Who are your favorite artists?

Who are your favorite musicians?

Who are your heroes in real life?

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

What is your favorite food and drink?

What do you most dislike?

Which historical figures do you most dislike?

What is your present state of mind?

Which fault in others do you most easily tolerate?

Which fault in yourself do you most easily tolerate?

What is your motto?

What is your biggest weakness?

What event in history do you most admire?

What social movement do you most admire?

What natural gift would you most like to possess?

How would you like to die?

What are your guilty pleasures?

How do you relax at the end of the day?

The questionnaire
There are two surviving sets of answers to the confession album questions by Proust: the first, from 1885 or 1886, is to an English confessions album, although his
answers are in French. The second, from 1891 or 1892, is from a French album, Les confidences de salon ("Drawing room confessions"), which contains
translations of the original questions, lacking some that were in the English version and adding others.

Confessions questions Confidences questions Proust's answers 1890

The principal aspect of my The need to be loved; more precisely, the need to be caressed and spoiled much more than the
Your favorite virtue
personality need to be admired
The quality that I desire in a
Your favorite qualities in a man. Feminine charms.
man.
Your favorite qualities in a The quality that I desire in a
Manly virtues, and frankness in friendship.
woman. woman.
Your chief characteristic ---- ----
What you appreciate the most in What I appreciate most about my To have tenderness for me, if their personage is exquisite enough to render quite high the
your friends friends. price of their tenderness
Your main fault My main fault Not knowing, not being able to "want".
Your favourite occupation. My favorite occupation. Loving.
I am afraid it be not great enough, I dare not speak it, I am afraid of destroying it by speaking
Your idea of happiness My dream of happiness.
it.
What would my greatest
Your idea of misery. Not to have known my mother or my grandmother.
misfortune be?
If not yourself, who would you be? What I should like to be. Myself, as the people whom I admire would like me to be.
The country where I should like A country where certain things that I should like would come true as though by magic, and
Where would you like to live?
to live. where tenderness would always be reciprocated
Your favourite colour and flower. My favourite colour. The beauty is not in the colours, but in their harmony.
---- The flower that I like. Hers/His - and after, all of them.
---- My favorite bird. The swallow.
Your favorite prose authors. My favorite prose authors. Currently, Anatole France and Pierre Loti.
Your favorite poets. My favorite poets. Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny.
Your favorite heroes in fiction. My heroes in fiction. Hamlet.
Your favorite heroines in fiction. My favorite heroines in fiction. Bérénice.
Your favorite painters and
My favorite composers. Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann.
composers.
---- My favorite painters. Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt.
Your heroes in real life. My heroes in real life. Mr. Darlu, Mr. Boutroux.
Your favorite heroines in real life. ---- ----
What characters in history do you
---- ----
most dislike.
Your heroines in World history My heroines in history. Cleopatra.
Your favorite food and drink. ---- ----
Your favorite names. My favorite names. I only have one at a time.
What I hate the most. What I hate most of all. What is bad about me.
World history characters I hate the Historical figures that I despise
I am not educated enough.
most the most.
The military event I admire the The military event that I admire
My military service!
most most.
The reform which I admire the
The reform I admire the most ----
most.
The natural talent I'd like to be The gift of nature that I would
Will-power, and seductiveness.
gifted with like to have.
How I wish to die How I want to die. Improved--and loved.
What is your present state of mind. My present state of mind. Boredom from having thought about myself to answer all these questions.
For what fault have you most Faults for which I have the most
Those that I understand.
toleration? indulgence.
Your favorite motto. My motto. I should be too afraid that it bring me misfortune.