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. Christopher Hitchens More Quotes by Christopher Hitchens More Quotes From Christopher Hitchens In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don't kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker. Christopher Hitchens brutes medicine world Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I'm talking to people. It doesn't always work, and one shouldn't always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation. Christopher Hitchens writing talking people It's not at all good when your cancer is 'palpable' from the outside. Especially when, as at this stage, they didn't even know where the primary source was. Carcinoma works cunningly from the inside out. Detection and treatment often work more slowly and gropingly, from the outside in. Christopher Hitchens treatment cancer stage The great thing about the United States and the historically magnetic effect it has had on a lot of people like me is its generosity, to put it simply. Christopher Hitchens generosity united-states people My children, to the extent that they have found religion, have found it from me, in that I insist on at least a modicum of religious education for them. Christopher Hitchens religious found children When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,' and so forth, I switch off quite early. Christopher Hitchens aunt cancer doctors The enormous dynamic and creative, as well as destructive energy of capitalism... is written up with more praise and more respect by Marx and Engels in the 1848 Communist Manifesto than probably by anyone since. I don't think anyone has ever said so precisely and with such awed admiration how great capitalism is, how inventive, how innovative, how dynamic, how much force of creativity it unleashes. Christopher Hitchens creativity creative thinking One of the many dreadful aspects of the Kennedy 'legacy' is the now-unbreakable grip of celebrity politics, image-doctoring, stage management, and "torch-passing" rhetoric in general. Christopher Hitchens torches legacy history I say 'Merry Christmas' to people I don't know, or to people I know are Christians. I say 'Happy Hanukkah' to people I know to be or suspect to be Jewish. And I don't say 'Happy Kwanzaa,' because I think African Americans get enough insults all year round. Christopher Hitchens merry-christmas christian thinking Don't swallow your moral code in tablet form. Christopher Hitchens tablets moral form I was taught very early on that the state can be, and is, a liar and a murderer. Christopher Hitchens taught states liars I don't have any terrific self-esteem issues but I do sometimes realise I've been too lucky and that I'm over-praised. It makes me nervous. I have this sense of being overrated. Christopher Hitchens issues lucky self-esteem It would have been very alarming - morally, and in other ways too - if an attack of that nature, the 11 September attacks, had not aroused in us and in our governments and societies the spirit of self-defence. If that had not been one of the responses it seems to me there would have been very grave cause for concern. Christopher Hitchens government self way What happens to the faith healer and the shaman when any poor citizen can see the full effect of drugs or surgeries, administered without ceremonies or mystifications? Roughly the same thing as happens to the rainmaker when the climatologist turns up, or to the diviner from the heavens when schoolteachers get hold of elementary telescopes. Christopher Hitchens citizens drug heaven Religion looks forward to the destruction of the world.... Perhaps half aware that its unsupported arguments are not entirely persuasive, and perhaps uneasy about its own greedy accumulation of temporal power and wealth, religion has never ceased to proclaim the Apocalypse and the day of judgment. Christopher Hitchens half looks world If asked my opinion about virginity, I would say, "I'm opposed to it." I don't think it deserves to be celebrated, at any rate. Or at least, if I'm not opposed, I'm very highly skeptical and critical of it. Christopher Hitchens rate opinion thinking But you'll notice, you will notice that Russia and China, invariably at the United Nations, move to block American action, to repress or hem in or punish other kinds of outlaw. Who stands behind Mugabi at the United Nations? Russia and China do. Who tried successfully to prevent the United Nations from speaking with one voice on its most signal violation of its resolutions, Iraq? Russia and China, again. North Korea the same. Burma the same. Christopher Hitchens russia block moving I'm not very impressed by people who yell "traitor" and "communist" and other less printable things. I don't like it. Christopher Hitchens communist traitor people One of the reasons I decided to apply for American citizenship after something like a quarter of century of living here on a British, European Union passport and a green card, was my identification with the United States in the post-September 11th period. Christopher Hitchens unions united-states cards When the [US] president writes to Kim Jong Il, the son, the Dear Leader, he doesn't call him Dear Mr President, he calls him Dear Mr Secretary. Have you ever noticed that? Why is that? Because he's not the president of North Korea, he's the head of the Communist Party, the North Korean Workers' Party and he's the head of the Army. He's not head of the state. The head of the state is his father, who's been dead for 15 years. Christopher Hitchens party writing father
