Christopher Hitchens

It is pardonable for children to yell that they believe in fairies, but it is somehow sinister when the piping note shifts from the puerile to the senile. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#fairies #hero-worship #john-f-kennedy #kennedy-family #politics

Forget it. Never explain; never apologize. You can either write posthumously or you can't. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#literature #nadine-gordimer #writing #death

The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#law #tyranny #love

The essential principle of totalitarianism is to make laws that are impossible to obey. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#religion

A sure sign of ineptitude and malice is manifested when one's attacker is willing to cover himself with mud in order to try and make some of it adhere to his target. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#debate #ineptitude #malice #norman-g-finkelstein #smear-campaigns

Beware what you wish for, unless you have the grace to hope that your luck can be shared. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#hopes #luck #love

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

— Christopher Hitchens

#death #humour #morality #death

I respect those who say that the United States should simply withdraw from the Middle East, but I don't respect them for anything but their honesty. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#isolationism #middle-east #noninterventionism #respect

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? ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#vanity #religion

mass indoctrination of uneducated young men with such ideas is in itself a lethal danger to society and to international order. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#men