Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchenswas an English-American author, columnist, essayist, orator, religious and literary critic, social critic, and journalist. He contributed to New Statesman, The Nation, The Atlantic, London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Slate, and Vanity Fair. Hitchens was the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of over 30 books, including five collections of essays, on a range of subjects, including politics, literature, and religion. A staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, his confrontational style of debate made him...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth13 April 1949
CountryUnited States of America
'Bombing Afghanistan back into the Stone Age' was quite a favourite headline for some wobbly liberals. The slogan does all the work. But an instant's thought shows that Afghanistan is being, if anything, bombed out of the Stone Age.
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?
I do not believe any of the statistical claims that are made about public opinion. I don't see why anybody does.
I'm afraid the SS's relationship with the Catholic Church is something the Church still has to deal with and does not deny.
If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.
Nonintervention does not mean that nothing happens. It means that something else happens.
Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.
I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient.
Every day, the New York Times carries a motto in a box on its front page. "All the News That's Fit to Print," it says. It's been saying it for decades, day in and day out. I imagine most readers of the canonical sheet have long ceased to notice this bannered and flaunted symbol of its mental furniture. I myself check every day to make sure that the bright, smug, pompous, idiotic claim is still there.
Victor invented me, in a way. He gave me a desk and a sponsor and a place to hang my hat, which was what I needed.
I would rather be held in contempt than support such a scandalous outcome. I won't testify if it's just against (Blumenthal), ... The point is (that) the president made sure, some way or another, that the story got into print. It was a threat against a potential witness -- a very vulgar and crude one, very typical of his modus operandi.
I worked out early on to give up things I couldn't do well at all.