(He had done, he liked to say, all the vices.)
—Larissa MacFarquhar, describing philosopher Bernard Williams in her endlessly-delightful New Yorker article on the late Derek Parfit, “How to Be Good.”
I find her prose, BTW, to be both astonishing and intimidating in its near-perfection. Full quote below the jump.
h/t Marginal Revolution, whose post on Parfit’s passing includes lotsa great links you should read.
“Williams lived a rich, worldly life. He had flown Spitfires in the Air Force. He had lived for years in a large house in London with his first wife, the politician Shirley Williams, their daughter, and another couple. He had an affair with another man’s wife and left his wife for her; they married and had two sons. He sat on royal commissions and government committees, issuing opinions on pornography, drug abuse, private schools, and gambling. (He had done, he liked to say, all the vices.) He wrote about opera.”
Yum. I’m gonna be reciting quotes from this article all week, I’m afraid.