The penalty for getting mugged in an American city and losing your ID is that you can't fly home.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the absurdity of bureaucratic rules in contrast to personal misfortune.
Christopher Hitchens points out the irony and impracticality of societal norms, suggesting that when faced with a serious crime like being mugged, the bureaucratic requirement of identification can become a significant barrier to personal safety and returning to normal life. The remark critiques the way systems can sometimes fail to support individuals in dire situations.
In practice
In a discussion about travel inconveniences, this quote can illustrate the complexities of modern society.
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.
My mother said I broke her heart...but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us...but within that inch we are free.
I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.
A coin is turned around before it is handed to the beggar, yet a child is unflinchingly tossed into cosmic bruteness.
The worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That is what it would mean; starting a life with you, without Him. Julia to Charles
...the person who surrenders absolutely to God, with no reservations, is absolutely safe. From this safe hiding-place he can see the devil , but the devil cannot see him.
I saw a man clothed with rags . . . a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back.
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