What are you most proud of?

Originally asked

Vogue, to one guest at a time, on camera, 73 Questions

Vogue's 73 Questions repeatedly asks respondents to select the work, relationship, or achievement that makes them proudest.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Gertrude B. Elion said elsewhere, not written here
I think I’m most proud of the fact that so many of the drugs have really been useful in saving lives. I’ve run into people whose lives have been saved, and the kind of satisfaction that you get from having someone come up and say, “My child had acute leukemia and your drug saved him.” Or, “My little girl had herpes encephalitis, and she is now cured, she is back at school. She is doing very well. People told me that she might be mentally affected, but she is not.” I run into people who have had kidney transplants for 20 years who are still taking the drug. And I don’t think that anything else that happens to you can match that type of satisfaction.

Academy of Achievement interview, San Francisco, California, 6 March 1991 source ↗

Others on this question

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Viswanathan Anand Indian chess grandmaster; five-time World Chess Champion
Yes, it is. I am proud that I could make a difference to chess in my country and that I could be a catalyst. I remember how unattainable the GM title felt once upon a time.
Recorded P.K. Ajith Kumar, Interview at his home in Chennai, for The Hindu's Wednesday Interview, 26 September 2018 source ↗
Dereck Joubert Wildlife film-maker and conservationist; National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence
There are a lot of images to be proud of. There are a lot of images that I’m very happy with, in the film context, that were very hard to do or that happened in the right moment, and that were the embodiment of the fact that I engulf myself in the spirit of an understanding of those animals at that time.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Washington, D.C., 18 June 2018 source ↗
Colin Powell United States Secretary of State 2001–2005; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Proud that I believe I have the respect of my fellow soldiers. And by soldiers, I mean all the members of the armed forces that I served with. No medal, no nice introduction, no awards could substitute just for the knowledge I have that I’m reasonably well respected by my fellow soldiers. If I didn’t have that, I would have considered this to be a busted career.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 23 May 1998 source ↗
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1993–2020; Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit 1980–1993
I was fortunate to be born at the right time and to be in the right place when the Women’s Movement came alive. So many things were wrong with the way life was ordered in the ’70s. In many states, women didn’t serve on juries, to take just one example, and there were so many jobs that were off limits to women. People began to realize there was something wrong about that, and women should be free to aspire and achieve just as men are. So I had legal education, and I could use that education to help move this movement for change, for allowing women to realize their full potential, help move that along. So it was that ten years of my life that I devoted to litigating cases about — I don’t say women’s rights — I say the constitutional principle of the equal citizenship stature of men and women. I was tremendously fortunate to be able to participate in that movement for change.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Washington, D.C., 14 July 2016 source ↗

More from Gertrude B. Elion

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Question Which teacher, parent, coach or friend most made you who you are, and what did you learn from them? Relationships
I can’t remember that anyone in particular did. I think perhaps it was my mother who influenced me the most. She was a housewife. She had no higher education, but had the most common sense of anyone I knew, and she wanted me to have a career. So she was always very supportive, at a time when many women of her generation would not have been.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗
Question Which writers or artists most influenced your work? Taste & recommendation
It was a very important finding for us because we were involved in nucleic acids. There weren’t many people interested in nucleic acids. There weren’t many people who believed that was the way to find drugs. But when we found out the structure, and we began to understand what kind of bases could be incorporated, and which ones couldn’t, and where they could be incorporated, it put a whole new dimension on it. So it had a very significant effect.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, San Francisco, California, 6 March 1991 source ↗

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