4 Portrait of the Philosopher at Sixty
In 1992, Jacques Derrida gave Osvaldo Muñoz an interview which
concluded with a traditional ‘Proust questionnaire’. If this text,
meant for the daily El País, was in the end not published, this is
perhaps because Derrida deemed it a bit too revealing:
What are the depths of misery for you?: To lose my memory.
Where would you like to live?: In a place to which I can always
return, in other words from which I can leave.
For what fault do you have the most indulgence?: Keeping a
secret which one should not keep.
Favourite hero in a novel: Bartleby.
Your favourite heroines in real life?: I’m keeping that a secret.
Your favourite quality in a man?: To be able to confess that he
is afraid.
Your favourite quality in a woman?: Thought.
Your favourite virtue?: Faithfulness.
Your favourite occupation: Listening.
Who would you like to have been?: Another who would remem-
ber me a bit.
My main character trait?: A certain lack of seriousness.
My dream of happiness?: To continue dreaming.
What would be my greatest misfortune?: Dying after the people
I love.
What I would like to be: A poet.
What I hate more than anything?: Complacency and vulgarity.
The reform I most admire: Everything to do with the diff erence
between the sexes.
The natural gift I would like to have: Musical genius.
How I would like to die: Taken completely by surprise.
My motto: Prefer to say yes.^1The convictions and the aporias, the anxieties, the hopes and the
fl aws, the desire to occupy every place, poetry, memory and secrecy
- in a sense, they’re all there.