A speech idiosyncrasy, in the same way as an air quote, is really justifiable only if it’s employed very sparingly and if the user consciously intends to be using it. – Christopher Hitchens
I feel upsettingly de-natured. If Penelope Cruz were one of my nurses, I wouldn’t even notice. – Christopher Hitchens
Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake. – Christopher Hitchens
One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation? A study of the Ten Commandments is a very good way of getting into and resolving that issue. – Christopher Hitchens
I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. – Christopher Hitchens
Primate and elephant and even pig societies show considerable evidence of care for others, parent-child bonding, solidarity in the face of danger, and so on. – Christopher Hitchens
I’m not resigned, but I’m realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it’s a certainty you’ll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process. – Christopher Hitchens
In one way, I suppose, I have been ‘in denial’ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. – Christopher Hitchens
I have nowhere claimed nor even implied that unbelief is a guarantee of good conduct or even an indicator of it. – Christopher Hitchens
Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‘O.K.’ has deposed the more affirmative ‘Yes,’ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‘like’ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness. – Christopher Hitchens
The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes. – Christopher Hitchens
Even with all the advantages of retrospect, and a lot of witnesses dead and gone, you can’t make your life look as if you intended it or you were consistent. All you can show is how you dealt with various hands. – Christopher Hitchens
Chemotherapy isn’t good for you. So when you feel bad, as I am feeling now, you think, ‘Well that is a good thing because it’s supposed to be poison. If it’s making the tumor feel this queasy, then I’m OK with it.’ – Christopher Hitchens
I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little. – Christopher Hitchens
It’s considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often or not who may be in extremis, and evangelise. I don’t see why that’s considered a normal thing. – Christopher Hitchens
You know, you can make a small mistake in language or etiquette in Britain, or you could when I was younger, and really be made to feel it, and it’s the flick of a lash, but it would sting, and especially at school where there’s not much privacy, and so on. You could, yes, undoubtedly be made to feel crushed. – Christopher Hitchens
I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators. – Christopher Hitchens
When you hear people demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in courtrooms and schoolrooms, always be sure to ask which set. It works every time. – Christopher Hitchens
Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don’t do any good, but they don’t necessarily do any harm. It’s touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I’ve got my just desserts. – Christopher Hitchens
Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of ‘like’ has spread through the idiom of the young. And it’s true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables. – Christopher Hitchens
Like the experience of warfare, the endurance of grave or terminal illness involves long periods of tedium and anxiety, punctuated by briefer interludes of stark terror and pain. – Christopher Hitchens