I am sorry I was not able to attend this wonderful celebration of your work. I was very much there in spirit, and look forward to engaging with your new book and all that is still to come.
I am happy to have this opportunity to tell you how very grateful I am for your kind and patient guidance over the years. I feel ridiculously fortunate to have spent so much time learning from you. As a wayward economist, I was especially grateful for your invaluable help in building the philosophical foundations of my dissertation, and – most especially – for your agreeing to be on my committee. Your support was not only essentially important to the substance of the work, but also in giving me the confidence to see it through. Above all, I am grateful for all I learned from you about being a scholar, both from your teaching and from your example.
One favorite memory is a walk through Harvard Yard a few years after I had graduated. I was working on turning my dissertation into a book, and you asked how the work was going. When I told you it was a bit of a slog, you recalled an old Peter Cook sketch: one man says to another “I’m writing a book, you know,” and the other replies, “Oh really? Neither am I.”
Dear Richard,
I am sorry I was not able to attend this wonderful celebration of your work. I was very much there in spirit, and look forward to engaging with your new book and all that is still to come.
I am happy to have this opportunity to tell you how very grateful I am for your kind and patient guidance over the years. I feel ridiculously fortunate to have spent so much time learning from you. As a wayward economist, I was especially grateful for your invaluable help in building the philosophical foundations of my dissertation, and – most especially – for your agreeing to be on my committee. Your support was not only essentially important to the substance of the work, but also in giving me the confidence to see it through. Above all, I am grateful for all I learned from you about being a scholar, both from your teaching and from your example.
One favorite memory is a walk through Harvard Yard a few years after I had graduated. I was working on turning my dissertation into a book, and you asked how the work was going. When I told you it was a bit of a slog, you recalled an old Peter Cook sketch: one man says to another “I’m writing a book, you know,” and the other replies, “Oh really? Neither am I.”
Thank you for everything, Richard.
All the best,
Peter