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.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the struggle between self-awareness and the consequences of overextending oneself.
Christopher Hitchens acknowledges his awareness of the unsustainable nature of living life 'burning the candle at both ends'. While he recognizes that this lifestyle may bring temporary joy and illumination, it ultimately leads to denial about the toll it takes on one's well-being.
In practice
During a motivational talk about work-life balance, one might reference this quote to illustrate the dangers of overworking.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way β because itβs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youβve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
To claim you are more detached, more alien to everything than anyone, and to be merely a fanatic of indifference!
Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.
To recommend a monarchy on account of the prosperity it gives the provinces seems to me like recommending that a man should have liberty to treat his children as slaves, if at the same time he treats his slaves with reasonable consideration.
A world of few choices, whether in jeans or mates, is a world in which individual differences become sources of alienation, unhappiness, even self-loathing. If no jeans fit, you'll feel uncomfortable or inferior. If no housing developments reflect your taste for unique architecture, you'll write screeds against philistine mass culture.
We have not faith, we have not patience to see this. We trust the man in the street; but there is one being in the universe we never trust and that is God. We trust Him when He works just our way. But the time will come when, getting blow after blow, the self - sufficient mind will die. In everything we do, the serpent ego is rising up. We are glad that there are so many thorns on the path. They strike the hood of the cobra.
Deliver me from Swedish furniture. Deliver me from clever art. And the phone rang and Tyler answered. "If you don't know what you want," the doorman said, "you end up with a lot you don't." May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. Deliver me, Tyler, from being perfect and complete.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.