Quotes by Christopher Hitchens

Nobody knows how many North Koreans have died or are dying in the famine—some estimates by foreign-aid groups run as high as three million in the period from 1995 to 1998 alone—but the rotund, jowly face of Kim Il Sung still beams down contentedly from every wall, and the 58-year-old son looks as chubby as ever, even as his slenderized subjects are mustered to applaud him.

Of course what Im about to share isnt true for me but...Friends, somebody said, are gods apology for relations. (p. 129)

Many writers, especially male ones, have told us that it is the decease of the father which opens the prospect of ones own end, and affords an unobstructed view of the undug but awaiting grave that says youre next. Unfilial as this may seem, that was not at all so in my own case. It was only when I watched Alexander [my own son] being born that I knew at once that my own funeral director had very suddenly, but quite unmistakably, stepped onto the stage. I was surprised by how calmly I took this, but also by how reluctant I was to mention it to my male contemporaries.

Its like a memorial to Atlantis or Lyonesse: these are the stone buoys that mark a drowned world.

Unless a reincarnationist is willing to say there was a first generation of souls created with the first humans, he is exposed to absurdity by the recency of human life on the planet.

Hesitate once, hesitate twice, hesitate a hundred times before employing political standards as a device for the analysis and appreciation of poetry.

To choose dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.

And here is the point, about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.

Faith is the surrender of the mind, its the surrender of reason, its the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. Its our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated

Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases thats where it should stay.

Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person or persons to whom I should have talked before I dared to write it. I never launch any little essay without the hope—and the fear, because the encounter may also be embarrassing—that I shall draw a letter that begins, Dear Mr. Hitchens, it seems that you are unaware that… It is in this sense that authorship is collaborative with the reader. And theres no help for it: you only find out what you ought to have known by pretending to know at least some of it already.It doesnt matter how obscure or arcane or esoteric your place of publication may be: some sweet law ensures that the person who should be scrutinizing your work eventually does do so.

For a lot of people, their first love is what theyll always remember. For me its always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going. If you dont let it get out of hand, it can be canalized into writing. In this country where people love to be nonjudgmental when they can be, which translates as, on the whole, lenient, there are an awful lot of bubble reputations floating around that one wouldnt be doing ones job if one didnt itch to prick.

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.

We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.

Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.

I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with you in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me.

I am not even an atheist so much as an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually true.... There may be people who wish to live their lives under cradle-to-grave divine supervision, a permanent surveillance and monitoring. But I cannot imagine anything more horrible or grotesque.

How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.

I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.