My Proust Interview

1.     What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Fear and ignorance.

2.     Where would you like to live?

In a Palladian.

3.     What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Doing what I love, surrounded by those I love.

4.     Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

The Count of Monte Cristo, Siddhartha, Ellen Ripley

5.     The quality you most admire in a man?

Integrity

6.     The quality you most admire in a woman?

Discretion

7.     Your favorite virtue?

Temperance.

8.     Your favorite occupation?

My own.

9.     Who would you have liked to be?

            Picasso, but only for a while.

10. Your most marked characteristic?

Tenacity.

11. What do you most value in your friends?

Their hearts and their intellects.

12. What is your principle defect?

Pride.

13. What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?

The death of my children.

14. What would you like to be?

More of who I am.

15. In what country would you like to live?

Spain.

16. What is your favorite color?

Every color.  I love possibility.

17. What is your favorite flower?

Black eyed Susan

18. What is your favorite bird?

The phoenix.

19. Who are your favorite poets?

O’hara, Lorca, Sexton

20. Who are your favorite painters?

JMW Turner, Mark Rothko, Matisse, Miquel Barcelo, Velazquez, Caravaggio

21. What is it you most dislike?

Belligerent ignorance.

22. What natural gift would you most like to possess?

Charm.

23. How would you like to die?

Gracefully.

24. What is your present state of mind?

Peacefully determined.

25. What is your motto?

“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and chaotic in your work.”