Christopher Hitchens Quotes

How much vanity must be concealed – not too effectively at that – in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan?

There is no such thing as notoriety in the United States these days, let alone infamy. Celebrity is all.

Those who say that I am being punished are saying that god can't think of anything more vengeful than cancer for a heavy smoker.

Your narrative may fail to grip if you haven't taken any care to find out how well or badly your audience member is faring (or feeling).

[T]his is an enemy for life, as well as an enemy of life.

Since I speak and write about this a good deal, I am often asked at public meetings, in what sometimes seems to me a rather prurient way, whether I myself or my family have 'ever been threatened' by jihadists. My answer is that yes, I have, and so has everyone else in the audience, if they have paid enough attention to the relevant bin-Ladenist broadcasts to notice the fact.

There is a huge trapdoor waiting to open under anyone who is critical of so-called 'popular culture' or (to redefine this subject) anyone who is uneasy about the systematic, massified cretinization of the major media. If you denounce the excess coverage, you are yourself adding to the excess. If you show even a slight knowledge of the topic, you betray an interest in something that you wish to denounce as unimportant or irrelevant. Some writers try to have this both ways, by making their columns both 'relevant' and 'contemporary' while still manifesting their self-evident superiority. Thus—I paraphrase only slightly—'Even as we all obsess about Paris Hilton, the people of Darfur continue to die.' A pundit like (say) Bob Herbert would be utterly lost if he could not pull off such an apparently pleasing and brilliant 'irony.

When the New York Times scratches its head, get ready for total baldness as you tear out your hair.