The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions about tastes, values and character associated with answers written by Marcel Proust. It offers a way to make a small portrait of someone. For a family conversation, the useful part is often the story behind an answer.
Where the questionnaire comes from
The University of Illinois Kolb-Proust Archive reproduces two versions Proust answered. One appears in an English confession album belonging to Antoinette Faure; the other is in French. The archive’s notes place the first album’s dated pages between 1884 and 1887 and the later questionnaire around his military service in 1889–1890.
Proust was filling in an existing album, not writing his own questions. Both lists below follow the archive’s transcription, and his answers are on the archive page.
The historical questions
The English album: “Confessions. An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, &c.”
The 24 prompts as printed in the album, with its British spelling:
- Your favourite virtue
- Your favourite qualities in a man
- Your favourite qualities in a woman
- Your favourite occupation
- Your chief characteristic
- Your idea of happiness
- Your idea of misery
- Your favourite colour and flower
- If not yourself, who would you be?
- Where would you like to live?
- Your favourite prose authors
- Your favourite poets
- Your favourite painters and composers
- Your favourite heroes in real life
- Your favourite heroines in real life
- Your favourite heroes in fiction
- Your favourite heroines in fiction
- Your favourite food and drink
- Your favourite names
- Your pet aversion
- What characters in history do you most dislike
- What is your present state of mind
- For what fault have you most toleration?
- Your favourite motto
The French questionnaire: “Marcel Proust par lui-même”
The 31 prompts in French, each followed by our plain English translation. The translation is ours, not the archive’s.
- Le principal trait de mon caractère (The main feature of my character)
- La qualité que je désire chez un homme (The quality I want in a man)
- La qualité que je désire chez une femme (The quality I want in a woman)
- Ce que j’apprécie le plus chez mes amis (What I value most in my friends)
- Mon principal défaut (My main fault)
- Mon occupation préférée (My favorite occupation)
- Mon rêve de bonheur (My dream of happiness)
- Quel serait mon plus grand malheur (What would be my greatest misfortune)
- Ce que je voudrais être (What I would like to be)
- Le pays où je désirerais vivre (The country where I would like to live)
- La couleur que je préfère (My favorite color)
- La fleur que j’aime (The flower I love)
- L’oiseau que je préfère (My favorite bird)
- Mes auteurs favoris en prose (My favorite prose authors)
- Mes poètes préférés (My favorite poets)
- Mes héros dans la fiction (My heroes in fiction)
- Mes héroïnes favorites dans la fiction (My favorite heroines in fiction)
- Mes compositeurs préférés (My favorite composers)
- Mes peintres favoris (My favorite painters)
- Mes héros dans la vie réelle (My heroes in real life)
- Mes héroïnes dans l’histoire (My heroines in history)
- Mes noms favoris (My favorite names)
- Ce que je déteste par-dessus tout (What I hate most of all)
- Caractères historiques que je méprise le plus (Historical figures I most despise)
- Le fait militaire que j’admire le plus (The military event I most admire)
- La réforme que j’estime le plus (The reform I most admire)
- Le don de la nature que je voudrais avoir (The natural gift I would like to have)
- Comment j’aimerais mourir (How I would like to die)
- État présent de mon esprit (My present state of mind)
- Fautes qui m’inspirent le plus d’indulgence (The faults I find easiest to forgive)
- Ma devise (My motto)
The French version is the longer one and includes questions the album does not, such as the bird you prefer, the reform you most admire and how you would like to die. Choose the version you want and say which one you used.
Choose between the historical form and a family conversation
If you want to compare your answers with Proust’s, use one of the historical lists above and keep a note of which one you answered.
If you want to learn about a parent or grandparent, start with something they can place in their own life. A preference becomes more revealing when you ask where it came from. Someone naming a favorite meal might remember the person who cooked it, the cramped kitchen or the journey to buy its ingredients.
The 12 questions below are our own family adaptation, not a translation of either historical list.
A family adaptation: 12 questions with room for a story
- What ordinary part of the week do you look forward to, and when did it become important to you?
- Whose way of treating people has stayed with you?
- Which place would you like someone in the family to understand better?
- What did you once care about that matters less to you now?
- Which book, song or film takes you back to a particular person?
- What do you enjoy doing even when nobody sees the result?
- When have you felt at home somewhere unexpected?
- What quality in a friend have you learned to appreciate with age?
- What small thing do you miss from an earlier part of your life?
- Which decision would you explain differently now than you did at the time?
- What would you like a younger relative to ask you about?
- What would make an ordinary day a good one for you now?
Let the person choose a question. For a follow-up, ask for a scene: who was there, what happened next, or what the place looked like. Avoid turning every answer into a lesson for the family.
Keep the words that belong to them
Suppose someone answers the second question with “my old neighbor.” A useful next question is “What did you see them do?” Write down the example and any phrase the speaker wants kept. You do not need to improve the story into a speech about kindness.
Ask before recording or sharing. If you make a written version, include the speaker’s name, the date and the question. Let them correct it or remove a part. The family interview guide explains how to arrange a longer conversation.
You can repeat a few questions later and keep both versions. A changed answer does not make the earlier one wrong; it tells you something about what changed.
Which questions should you try next?
For names, places and memories across a life, use the grandparent questions. For a conversation about values that does not depend on family history, try the philosophical questions.
Questions about the questionnaire
Did Proust invent the questionnaire?
The archive shows him answering an existing confession album. It is more accurate to describe the questionnaire as associated with his answers than to credit him with inventing its format.
Does everyone use the same questions?
The archive itself contains two different historical versions. Label the version you use. If you adapt questions for your own family, say so instead of presenting them as Proust’s original wording.