Christopher Hitchens Quotes
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A good liar must have a good memory. Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.
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I have been 'in denial' for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.
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And yet, I wake up every day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance. I probably ought to carry around some kind of thermometer or other instrument, to keep checking that I am not falling prey to premature curmudgeonhood.
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Three words for those who want to put the Christ back in Christmas: Jingle Bell Rock.
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Perhaps the values of socialists can only be realized by socialists in a nonsocialist society.
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Will an Iraq war make our Al Qaeda problem worse? Not likely.
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I can never quite decide whether the anti-Columbus movement is merely risible or faintly sinister....It is sinister, though, because it is an ignorant celebration of stasis and backwardness, with an unpleasant tinge of self-hatred.
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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
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The death toll is not nearly high enough... too many jihadists have escaped.
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An impressive thing about India is the way in which it has almost as many Muslim citizens, who live with greater prospects of peace and prosperity, as does Pakistan. This comity and integration is one of the many targets of the suicide killers, and it is another reason why firm, warm solidarity with India is the most pressing need of the present hour.
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Time spent arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.
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The polls undoubtedly help to decide what people think, but their most important long-term influence may be on how people think. The interrogative process is very distinctly weighted against the asking of an intelligent question or the recording of a thoughtful answer.
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Hannity-'You seem to be angry with religion, angry with god. Am I wrong in my perception?' Hitchens-'Not with god, obviously,that would be absurd.'
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MT Mother Teresa was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.
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The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
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All this could be part of a plan. But it’s some plan, isn’t it?; With mass destruction, pitiless extermination and annihilation going on all the time.
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... 'I wouldn't have her job'. Those who profess unquenchable love for the sovereign are adamant that she press on in a task that they consider killingly hard.
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What a country, and what a culture, when the liberals cry before they are hurt, and the reactionaries pose as brave nonconformists, while the radicals make a fetish of their own jokey irrelevance.
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'Peace through Strength,' surely history's most exploded nostrum.
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Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things... one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.
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If you think that the intifada in France is about housing, go and try covering the story wearing a yarmulka.
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The progress that's made … in any argument or in any discussion is by confrontation. That's a dialectical fact. People say 'oh let's have less heat and more light,' fatuously. There's only one source of light. It happens to be heat.
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When I am at home, I never go near the synagogue unless, say, there is a bar or bat mitzvah involving the children of friends. But when I am traveling, in a country where Jewish life is scarce or endangered, I often make a visit to the shul.
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It was an axiom of 'containment' that no part of the known world could be considered neutral. 'Neutralism' was among the Cold Warriors' gravest curse words, applied with caustic hostility to India and even France. Those who were not with were against, subjected to intense economic and ideological - and sometimes military - pressure to fall into line.