Proust (NOT pronounced to rhyme with "joust")

From le gerb, which is unlinkable as yet, but she found the info here among other places

What is your favorite virtue? Sticktuitiveness.

What are your favorite qualities in a man? Honesty, self-confidence, and strength. But the whole thing hinges on humor.

What are your favorite qualities in a woman? Honesty, intelligence, and strength. Again however, humor is primary.

What is your chief characteristic? Beast would say "kindness." I would laugh and think, "Selfishness."

What do you appreciate the most in your friends? Patience (with me).

What is your main fault? Being hard to please. (Give me credit for acknowledging that--and I'm harder on myself than ANYone else.)

What is your favorite occupation? I like being occupied with sleep. My favorite job to do is cataloging and also answering a good reference question well.

What is your idea of happiness? Sunshine, a good book, a bottomless glass of cool water, and no schedule.

What is your idea of misery? February in the northern states. I fucking HATE February!

If you could not be yourself, who would you be? I like the original phrasing better: "What I should like to be." I should like to be the person I was created to be.

Where would you like to live? Somewhere with no February. I really have to do something different next winter. I will not make it if I repeat this year. Otherwise, I could be happy in a mobile home or a hotel or a McMansion (tho' less so) as long as it's clean, and as long as I can connect with those I love.

What is your favorite color? Blue.

What is your favorite flower? Roses: not from the florist, from the garden. And they have to smell like something!

Who are your favorite prose authors? Kent Haruf, Charlotte Bronte, Sara Paretsky, Anne Lamott, Laura Wilder, Robert Parker, Bart Ehrman, P.D. James....

Who are your favorite poets? Alfred Lord Tennyson, Anna Akhmatova, Wm. Shakespeare, Ogden Nash, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings....

Who are your favorite heroes in fiction? Raymond and Harold McPheron (in Kent Haruf's books), Spenser (in the Robert Parker books), Pa (in the Little House books)...

Who are your favorite heroines in fiction? V.I. Warshawski (Sara Paretsky's 'tec), Laura (in the Little House books), Ruth (in The Book of Ruth), Jane Eyre...

Who are your favorite painters and composers? Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Dali, Handel, Karl King, Copland...

Who are your heroes and heroines in real life? Joan, Venus, Mom, Dad, Beast, Cheryl.... Note: I know all these people. I don't make heroes out of people I don't know.

What characters in history do you most dislike? What "characters"? Uh, there are a lot of historical people I dislike--Hitler, Stalin, Torquemada, Vlad the Impaler, Nero...

Who are your heroes or heroines in world history? Christine de Pizan, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., St. Peter, Thomas a Beckett...

What is your favorite food and drink? Iced sugar cookies, mashed potatoes, bread, Dr. Pepper, and water.

What is your favorite name? To be called: my first name. Though Mom is a close second, from Sparky.

What do you hate the most? WINTER!!

What is the military event that you most admire? The siege of Leningrad...from the defensive point of view.

What is the reform that you most admire? The Civil Rights Act of 1964, although I'll give grudging credit to Lincoln for his Emancipation Proclamation even if it was a remarkably bizarre thing for him to do.

What is the natural talent with which you'd most like to be gifted? Double-jointedness? I don't know. I don't really think this way, but I wouldn't mind being less klutzy.

How do you wish to die? With a minimal amount of pain and fuss for those left behind.

What is your present state of mind? Low-level concern over tonight's meeting....

For what fault do you have the most toleration? Those I do not share.

What is your favorite motto? Live and let live.