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Christopher Hitchens Quotes - Page 22

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I must have been one of the least surprised people on earth on September 11. I felt very braced for that. I knew something like that was going to come.

I must have been one of the least surprised people on earth on September 11. I felt very braced for that. I knew something like that was going to come.

Christopher Hitchens
People, September 11, Earth

There is no reason at all why there aren't enough people to guard New Orleans and to help stabilise Baghdad.

Christopher Hitchens
New Orleans, People, Baghdad
"Hurricane response could sink Bush". Interview with Tony Jones, www.abc.net.au. September 6, 2005.

It's the professional deformation of many writers, and has ruined not a few. (I remember Kingsley Amis, himself no slouch, saying that he could tell on what page of the novel Paul Scott had reached for the bottle and thrown caution to the winds.)

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Wind, Bottles
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.314, Atlantic Books Ltd

A bit of a stomach give a chap a position in society.

Christopher Hitchens
Giving, Stomach, Chaps
Christopher Hitchens (2015). “And Yet...: Essays”, p.170, Atlantic Books Ltd

Only a complete moral idiot can believe for an instant that we are fighting against the wretched of the earth. We are fighting, as I said before, against the scum of the earth

Christopher Hitchens
Believe, Fighting, Scum Of The Earth
Simon Cottee, Thomas Cushman, Christopher Hitchens (2008). “Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left”, p.5064, NYU Press

I vote and I do jury duty.

Christopher Hitchens
Vote, Duty, Jury Duty

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It's a battle you can't hope to win - it's a battle that's going to go on forever. It's part of the human condition.

Christopher Hitchens
Winning, Forever, Battle

I'm here as a product of process of evolution, which doesn't make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply.

Christopher Hitchens
Evolution, Process, Rate

I do not believe any of the statistical claims that are made about public opinion. I don't see why anybody does.

Christopher Hitchens
Believe, Public Opinion, Doe

The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It's a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.

Christopher Hitchens
America, Progress, Generations
"FIVE QUESTIONS FOR: Christopher Hitchens / A gadfly with gusto". Interview with Carolyne Zinko, www.sfgate.com. June 26, 2005.

It would have been very alarming - morally, and in other ways too - if an attack of that nature, the 11 September attacks, had not aroused in us and in our governments and societies the spirit of self-defence. If that had not been one of the responses it seems to me there would have been very grave cause for concern.

Christopher Hitchens
Government, Self, Way

'WASP' is the only ethnic term that is in fact a term of class, apart from redneck, which is another word for the same group but who are in the lower social strata, so it's inexplicably tied up with social standing and culture and history in a way that the other hyphenations just are not.

Christopher Hitchens
Redneck, Class, Facts

A lot of people, because of my contempt for the false consolations of religion, think of me as a symbolic public opponent of that in extremis. And sometimes that makes me feel a bit alarmed, to be the repository of other people's hope.

Christopher Hitchens
Thinking, People, Opponents

If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Christopher Hitchens
Doe, Torture, Ifs
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “Arguably”, p.410, Atlantic Books Ltd

In the aftermath of the recent wave action in the Indian Ocean, even the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williamson [sic], proved himself a latter-day Voltairean by whimpering that he could see how this might shake belief in a friendly creator. Williamson is of course a notorious fool, who does an almost perfect imitation of a bleating and frightened sheep, but even so, one is forced to rub one's eyes in astonishment. Is it possible that a grown man could live so long and still have his personal composure, not to mention his lifetime job description, upset by a large ripple of seawater?

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Jobs, Ocean

I was taught very early on that the state can be, and is, a liar and a murderer.

Christopher Hitchens
Liars, Taught, States
Simon Cottee, Thomas Cushman, Christopher Hitchens (2008). “Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left”, p.5167, NYU Press

It's not at all good when your cancer is 'palpable' from the outside. Especially when, as at this stage, they didn't even know where the primary source was. Carcinoma works cunningly from the inside out. Detection and treatment often work more slowly and gropingly, from the outside in.

Christopher Hitchens
Cancer, Treatment, Stage
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Mortality”, p.13, Atlantic Books Ltd

It's [Los Angeles] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they'll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them aren't even young and beautiful now.

Christopher Hitchens
Beautiful, Thinking, Forever

Did we not aid the grisly Taliban to achieve and hold power? Yes indeed 'we' did. Well, does that not double or triple our responsibility to remove them from power?

Christopher Hitchens
Responsibility, Doe, Achieve
Christopher Hitchens (2004). “Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays”, p.418, Nation Books

When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,' and so forth, I switch off quite early.

Christopher Hitchens
Cancer, Aunt, Doctors

I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?

Christopher Hitchens
Christmas, Thinking, Austerity
"'Tis the Season To Be Incredulous" by Christopher Hitchens, www.slate.com. December 15, 2008.

Hero­ism breaks its heart, and ide­al­ism its back, on the intran­si­gence of the cred­u­lous and the mediocre, manip­u­lated by the cyn­i­cal and the corrupt.

Christopher Hitchens
Hero, Heart, Isms

The quality you most admire in a woman? Courage moral and physical: "anima"-the ability to visualize the mind and need of a man. Also a sense of the absurd.

Christopher Hitchens
Men, Empathy, Mind

I can't find the compulsory mutilation of the genitals of children a subject for humor... It's designed to repress sexual pleasure... The full excision, not just the snip but the full mandatory covenant is fantastically painful, leads to trauma, leads to the dulling of the sexual relationship. And can be, in itself life-threatening at that moment. We have records, I can show them to you, of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds in the United States of boy babies who died or had life-threatening infections as a result of this disgusting practice.

Christopher Hitchens
Baby, Atheist, Children

It ought to be an offense to be excruciating and unfunny in circumstances where your audience is almost morally obliged to enthuse.

Christopher Hitchens
Cancer, Circumstances, Offense
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Mortality”, p.30, Atlantic Books Ltd

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