Christopher Hitchens

I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously.

It's impossible, I think, however much I'd become disillusioned politically or evolve into a post-political person, I don't think I'd ever change my view that socialism is the best political moment humans have ever come up with.

I don't envy or much respect people who are completely politicised.

The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It's a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.

I'm here as a product of process of evolution, which doesn't make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply.

Well, I'll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in God makes people behave worse. That can be proved beyond a doubt.

Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

I love it when Muslims go to war with each other, as I do when the Christians do, because it shows there's no such thing as the Christian world and the Islamic world. That's all crap.

Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.

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.

I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn't ever have to rely on the press for my information.

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I'll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I'm crepuscular.

it is interesting to find that people of faith now seek defensively to say that they are no worse than fascists or Nazis or Stalinists