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).

I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.

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.

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

The rich world likes and wishes to believe that someone, somewhere, is doing something for the Third World. For this reason, it does not inquire too closely into the motives or practices of anyone who fulfills, however vicariously, this mandate.