Quotes by Christopher Hitchens

People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of race or gender alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.

Some lurid things have been said about me—that I am a racist, a hopeless alcoholic, a closet homosexual and so forth—that I leave to others to decide the truth of. Id only point out, though, that if true these accusations must also have been true when I was still on the correct side, and that such shocking deformities didnt seem to count for so much then. Arguing with the Stalinist mentality for more than three decades now, and doing a bit of soapboxing and street-corner speaking on and off, has meant that it takes quite a lot to hurt my tender feelings, or bruise my milk-white skin.

In his entire output, I can find only one piece of genuine unfairness: a thuggish attack on the poetry of WH Auden, whom he regarded as a dupe of the Communist Party. But even this was softened in some later essays. The truth is that he disliked Audens homosexuality, and could not get over his prejudice. But much of the interest of Orwell lies in the fact that he was born prejudiced, so to speak, against Jews and the coloured peoples of the empire, and against the poor and uneducated, and against women and intellectuals—and managed, in a transparent and unique way, to educate himself out of this fog of bigotry (though he never did get over his aversion to pansies).

And how easy it is to recognize the revenant shapes that the old unchanging enemies—racism, leader worship, superstition—assume when they reappear amongst us (often bodyguarded by their new apologists).

Not long ago, having expressed some disagreements in print with an old comrade of long standing, I was sent a response that he had published in an obscure newspaper. This riposte referred to my opinions as ‘racist.’ I would obviously scorn to deny such an allegation on my own behalf. I would, rather, prefer to repudiate it on behalf of my former friend. He had known me for many years and cooperated with me on numerous projects, and I am quite confident that he would never have as a collaborator anyone he suspected of racial prejudice. But it does remind me, and not for the first time, that quarrels on the left have a tendency to become miniature treason trials, replete with all kinds of denunciation. Theres a general tendency—not by any means confined to radicals but in some way specially associated with them—to believe that once the lowest motive for a dissenting position has been found, it must in some way be the real one.

Many governments employ torture but this was the first time that the element of Saturnalia and pornography in the process had been made so clear to me. If you care to imagine what any inadequate or cruel man might do, given unlimited power over a woman, then anything that you can bring yourself to suspect was what became routine in ESMA, the Navy Mechanics School that became the headquarters of the business. I talked to Dr. Emilio Mignone, a distinguished physician whose daughter Monica had disappeared into the precincts of that hellish place. What do you find to say to a doctor and a humanitarian who has been gutted by the image of a starving rat being introduced to his daughters genitalia? Like hell itself the school was endorsed and blessed by priests, in case any stray consciences needed to be stilled.

[I]f you think that American imperialism and its globalised, capitalist form is the most dangerous thing in the world, that means you dont think the Islamic Republic of Iran or North Korea or the Taliban is as bad.

But what [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that views do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.

Terrorism works better as a tactic for dictatorships, or for would-be dictators, than for revolutionaries.

There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.

It is indeed strange, given the heavy emphasis placed by chroniclers on Churchills sheer magnitude of personality, that the ingredient of pure ambition should be so much ignored or even disallowed.

The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.

When Maimonides says that the Messiah will come but that he may tarry, we see the origin of every Jewish shrug from Spinoza to Woody Allen.

How ya doin? I always think, What kind of a question is that?, and I always reply, A bit early to tell.

In our native terms, the ironic style is often compounded with the sardonic and the hard-boiled; even the effortlessly superior. But irony originates in the glance and the shrug of the loser, the outsider, the despised minority. It is a nuance that comes most effortlessly to the oppressed.

Try your hardest to combat atrophy and routine. To question The Obvious and the given is an essential element of the maxim de omnius dubitandum [All is to be doubted].

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

Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will provide plenty of time for silence.

If we stay with animal analogies for a moment, owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are god. (Cats may sometimes share the cold entrails of a kill with you, but this is just what a god might do if he was in a good mood.)

[T]hose who willed the means and wished the ends are not absolved from guilt by the refusal of reality to match their schemes.