Michael Foley Revealed
About Michael Foley
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What is your birthdate?:10/24
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Previous occupations:Barman, schoolteacher, lecturer
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Favorite job:Teaching mathematics
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High school and/or college:Derry and Belfast, Northern Ireland
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Name of your favorite composer or music artist?:Schubert in classical music, Thelonious Monk in jazz
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Favorite movie:Dr Strangelove
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Favorite television show:The Proust of cop shows, The Wire
Revealing Questions
- Q. How would you describe your life in only 8 words?
- A. Apparently conventional and uninteresting, actually an unfathomable conundrum
- Q. What is your motto or maxim?
- A. Life is absurd – but divinely absurd.
- Q. How would you describe perfect happiness?
- A. Aperitif time on Saturday evening, warm eyes meeting over cold wine.
- Q. What’s your greatest fear?
- A. Going gaga
- Q. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?
- A. Just where I am
- Q. With whom in history do you most identify?
- A. The canny Roman poet Horace
- Q. Which living person do you most admire?
- A. I don't believe in hero worship
- Q. What are your most overused words or phrases?
- A. Idiot, absurd, exquisite, sublime
- Q. What do you regret most?
- A. Wasting time on regret
- Q. If you could acquire any talent, what would it be?
- A. Playing piano. To get at the thing with your bare hands!
- Q. What is your greatest achievement?
- A. Remaining in love with a woman for forty years
- Q. What’s your greatest flaw?
- A. Contempt
- Q. What’s your best quality?
- A. Not for me to say or even think about
- Q. If you could be any person or thing, who or what would it be?
- A. To wish to be someone else is a terrible modern form of despair.
- Q. What trait is most noticeable about you?
- A. Only others can see us from the outside.
- Q. Who is your favorite fictional hero?
- A. Anthony in Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra
- Q. Who is your favorite fictional villain?
- A. Falstaff - appalling in every way but impossible to hate
- Q. If you could meet any historical character, who would it be and what would you say to him or her?
- A. Shakespeare. I would like to look him in the eye and say, 'You're a cunning one, aren't you? You're one cunning boy.'
- Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?
- A. Music in bookshops
- Q. What is your favorite occupation, when you’re not writing?
- A. The dangerous contact sport, reading
- Q. What’s your fantasy profession?
- A. Detective
- Q. What 3 personal qualities are most important to you?
- A. Generosity, humility, humour
- Q. If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be?
- A. Homemade chicken soup with vegetables and barley.
- Q. What are your 5 favorite songs?
- A. E Lucevan le Stelle (Puccini), Summertime (Gershwin), The ballad of John and Yoko (Beatles), Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads), Dance Me To The End Of Love (Leonard Cohen)
On Books and Writing
- Q. Who are your favorite authors?
- A. Shakespeare, George Eliot, Robert Browning, Flaubert, Proust, James Joyce
- Q. What are your 5 favorite books of all time?
- A. Anthony and Cleopatra, Middlemarch, L'Education Sentimentale, A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, Ulysses
- Q. Is there a book you love to reread?
- A. Ulysses
- Q. Do you have one sentence of advice for new writers?
- A. Forget about recognition, read, read, read and write, write, write.
- Q. What comment do you hear most often from your readers?
- A. How can you be so candid?
