don't mistake personality for character

1. Most comforting place, smell, sound and memory:
   Place: college BFF's living room. Whatever's going wrong, it gets better just as a function of my being there.
   Smell: bread, baking
   Sound: my best friend, snoring breathing-while-napping
   Memory: there's this guy—mostly a good friend, maybe more, I don't know—who gives the best hugs. You know who you are.
2. Your ambitions as a child and your ambitions now: as a child, I was certain that all I'd ever want to do was to be a photographer. After some great and terrible soul searching, I determined that I'd not be successful nor happy in that career, so I revised my dream toward writing. That's still all, and the only, 'career' that could totally fulfill my ambitions.
3. Biggest fear: being stuck
4. Qualities you would like in a partner (if you would like one): honesty, financial responsibility, humor, energy, intelligence, tenderness, ability to lift & carry heavy furniture/boxes/etc. a plus
5. Traits you couldn't put up with in a partner (if you would like one): dishonesty, financial irresponsibility, excessive dourness, laziness, foolishness, cruelty
6. What is the worst thing you have done to another person? waited too long to tell a hard truth
7. What are your worst traits and features? I am unforgiving, easily frustrated (with others), and my nose looks like it's been broken but hasn't
8. What are your best traits and features? I'm loyal (almost distressingly so), easy to talk to, and have good shoulders
9. How would you explain your idea of ‘true love’? it's being there after the fireworks, to clean up the mess that everyone else has left. It's paying the bills, even though you want a vacation and some new jeans. It's eating something you're not wild about—a couple of times a week, even—because that means that the one you love can have what they really enjoy. It's the gnarly thing that sprouts, not the gorgeous specimen that you see on the seed packet. And sticking around to see what it tastes like, and loving that.
10. The biggest mistake you've made: I don't make 'big' mistakes, just seemingly endless streams of small mistakes that, when viewed together, are almost overwhelming and terrifying. People seem to believe that I'm reasonably intelligent and sensible, but I'm really pretty blamed stupid.
11. Are you rational or more emotional? yep
12. Do you think you’re very conscious of the feelings of others or more self-oriented? I am extremely self-oriented, but only because I've learned to be over years of training. I'm still inordinately conscious of others' feelings, though. The latter is my personality, while the former is my habit.
13. Greatest achievement personally: besides the habit in the previous answer? Passing the bar exam, maybe.
14. If you struggle to sleep at night, what do you do to try and soothe yourself to sleep? if it's not happening, it's not happening. I'll get up and do something else until I feel sleepy and try again.
15. What irritates you most about society? intolerance. I know far too many "liberal" people who spend the great majority of their time ranting about others' failure to live up to their strict expectations in myriad ways. Consider the definition of sanctimony....
16. When you compliment someone, what do you tend to focus on? um, I'll focus on whatever drew me to compliment them. It's just truth-telling, not inventing something to throw at them, like a layer of cloying frosting to plop onto a cake.
    Ironic to consider this now, given recent conversations with good friends about their utter inability to accept compliments when sincerely offered. Whether or not you agree with the content of the compliment, your refusal to acknowledge the compliment can be perceived as an insult to the person making it. It is far more kind, fair, and open to simply accept it in the spirit in which it was offered.
17. Think of your oldest friend. If you met them now do you think you would still become friends? I do. She is a smart, funny, lovely person who always brings a light to me when we spend time together.
18. Something you love to do, but feel guilty about after/during? eating at Applebee's. Delicious, but terrible. What a way to die, though! 
19. Would you like children in the future? Why/not? if offspring come my way, it will be by way of steps. I suppose that will be a blessing, won't it? So it would be short-sighted to say that I've no desire for children of my own.
20. Anything you would like to question me on based on my blog? given that I took this from a random questionnaire site, I'm not opening it up to questions from the giver—but I will accept questions from anyone who's got the urge to leave something unique and interesting in the comments. Go wild....

[from the original source; the title quotation is by Wilma Askinas]