Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Christopher Hitchens
Age: 62 †
Born: 1949
Born: April 13
Died: 2011
Died: December 15
Author
Autobiographer
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Political Scientist
Writer
Portsmouth
England
Christopher Eric Hitchens
Light
Suppose
Giving
Burning
Way
Lovely
Time
Findings
Finding
Gives
Knowingly
Often
Candle
Ends
Denial

More quotes by Christopher Hitchens

Image
I wrote a piece from North Korea called Visit to a Small Planet which is a line I stole from a play of Gore Vidal's, because it did seem to me as if I had left this planet completely to go on this visit to the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, and it was as if coming back from another spatial body altogether.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Only a complete moral idiot can believe for an instant that we are fighting against the wretched of the earth. We are fighting, as I said before, against the scum of the earth
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The role of dissident is not, and should not be, a claim of membership in a communion of saints. In other words, the more fallible the mammal, the truer the example.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
This huge and terrible industry [the slave trade] was blessed by all churches and for a long time aroused absolutely no religious protest. . . . In the eighteenth century, a few dissenting Mennonites and Quakers in America began to call for abolition, as did some freethinkers like Thomas Paine.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
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
Image
At Oxford one was positively encouraged to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and - since there is no other metaphor - also the soul.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I think the socialist movement, by removing many, many people from grinding stagnation and poverty and overwork, does enable people not just to lead better lives but to be better people.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The one unforgivable sin is to be boring.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
If I was to interrupt this article every few sentences, asking you whether or not I was making a good impression on you, I hope and believe that you would think I was a servile jerk. Yet this is what our politicians are doing in every speech.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
We have millions and millions of North Korean children totally stunted in mind and body and will have to be dealt with at some point, who have been raised to believe that they live in a regime that is run by a god.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Religion, it is true, still possesses the huge if cumbersome and unwieldy advantage of having come first.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
With modern American dentistry it is simply amazing to see what transformation can be wrought in a single day.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Religion is not just incongruent with morality, but in essential ways incompatible with it.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.
Christopher Hitchens