In person, as on the page, Hitchens is in masterly possession of what he calls saeva indignatio, that "combination of cheek and anger to point out how the world falls short of its pretensions". He is a skilled orator, working, as far as I could see, without a text or notes. He chooses his weapons carefully, and is efficient either as a sniper or as a bombardier unloading the full arsenal of his invective. But he is also a barnum, of the type so congenial to that quintessentially American tradition of cracker-barrel salesmanship. When an elderly woman rises to challenge Hitchens, he quips: "Mother, I told you not to do this." Thus her question is deflected, amid the general laughter of an audience who are now behaving as so many valets to this lofty wit.
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Frances Stonor Saunders,Christopher Hitchens
» Christopher Hitchens - all quotes »
Hitchens maintains that that "there is a close fit between the democratically minded and the pro-American" in the Middle East - like "President for Life" Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah of Jordan...that [referring to 9/11] "Washington finally grasped that "there were `root causes behind the murder-attacks" [emphasis in original] (but didn't Hitchens ridicule any allusion to "root causes" as totalitarian apologetics?)...that "racism" is "anti-American as nearly as possible by definition"...that "evil" can be defined as "the surplus value of the psychopath"...is there a Bartlett's for worst quotations?
Christopher Hitchens
Hitchens is also a militant atheist, or as he prefers to term it "anti-theist." I wish it were not so, because I'd love to have Hitchens' rapier wit and bohemian elegance on our side.
Christopher Hitchens
The oldest known Chinese sage is Lao-Tze, the founder of Taoism. "Lao Tze" is not really a proper name, but means merely "the old philosopher." He was (according to tradition) an older contemporary of Confucius, and his philosophy is to my mind far more interesting. He held that every person, every animal, and every thing has a certain way or manner of behaving which is natural to him, or her, or it, and that we ought to conform to this way ourselves and encourage others to conform to it. "Tao" means "way," but used in a more or less mystical sense, as in the text: "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life." I think he fancied that death was due to departing from the "way," and that if we all lived strictly according to nature we should be immortal, like the heavenly bodies.
Laozi (or Lao Tzu)
A couple of months after the invasion of Iraq, I was in Los Angeles and some drunk accosted me, saying, "George Bush was right about everything he said about Iraq!" - weapons of mass destruction, the al-Qaeda connection and more. It was Christopher Hitchens, "debating" me, and furious. His confusing our President's assertions with reality was a verbal pie he threw in the air and caught on his face.
Christopher Hitchens
"Pray, my dear," quoth my mother, "have you not forgot to wind up the clock?" — "Good G—!" cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time, — "Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?"
Laurence Sterne
Hitchens, Christopher
Hitchens, Peter
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