Sign in with your pod

Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina

Christopher Hitchens

263 quotes

• “I’m quite convinced in my own mind that those who were arguing that [the need to intervene in Iraq] was a more immediate one than some believed - were I’m sure convinced that they were right on fact, I don’t think they were making it up. So as to lying, I don’t think it has been established that any lies were told.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Scotland Live (2005-10-31): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq

• “I don't think that the figure 2000 is an important milestone, in the first place. And in the second place, I don't think that this can be determined by public opinion. The righteousness of the war was not demonstrated by public support for it in the beginning, nor its wisdom altered by the evident decline in public support for it. I don't pay attention to the opinion polls, or indeed to the casualty figures, because I know that this is an inevitable war, a war that was going to have to happen — and was, in my opinion, both just and necessary.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Scotland Live (2005-10-31): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq

• “Interviewer: It seems to be acknowledged that there're more people out there supporting the aims of Al-Qaeda and groups like them, and are willing to die, as a result of this war, than perhaps there were previously?Hitchens: Well, you could as easily say that the number of people who used to be based in Afghanistan, have, as a result of the intervention there, relocated themselves and spread the virus in that way. Both of these arguments lead to only one terminus, which is: we should surrender to jihadism, and not try to oppose it, in case we make them upset.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Scotland Live (2005-10-31}: On the 2003 invasion of Iraq

• “If you think that the intifada in France is about housing, go and try covering the story wearing a yarmulka.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Will an Iraq war make our Al Qaeda problem worse? Not likely.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq (Plume, 2003) [published in the United Kingdom as Regime Change]; quoted in "The Genocidal Imagination of Christopher Hitchens" by Richard Seymour, Monthly Review (2005…

• “The regular media caricature of Iraqi society is not even a parody. It is very common indeed to find mixed and intermarried families, and these loyalties and allegiances outweigh anything that can be mustered by a Jordanian jailbird who has bet everything on trying to ignite a sectarian war. Second, it means in the not very long run that the so-called insurgency can be politically isolated and militarily defeated. It already operates within a minority of a minority and is largely directed by unpopular outsiders.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: It's Curtains for al-Qaida", Slate (2006-01-16): On Iraq

• “I, for one, will not have [the Vietcong] insulted by any comparison to the forces of Zarqawi, the Fedayeen Saddam, and the criminal underworld now arrayed against us. These depraved elements are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(Howard) Dean is a raving nut bag...a raving, sinister, demagogic nutbag...I and a few other people saw that he should be destroyed.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in The New Yorker, October 2006. According to writer Ian Parker, this was Hitchens' response to a dinner-party guest who made a favourable comment about Howard Dean. Parker states that Hitchens appeared heavily d…

• “They want me to immolate myself, and I sincerely believe that for some of them, when they see bad news from Iraq, the reaction is simply 'This will make Hitchens look bad!' I've been trying to avoid solipsism, but I've come to believe there are such people.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: He Knew He Was Right," profile by Ian Parker, The New Yorker (2006-10-16): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq

• “There is no longer any official froideur. But there's no official - what's the word? - chaleur, either.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On his relationship with Peter Hitchens, his brother. Interview in The Guardian, 28 October 2006

• “My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line and kiss my ass.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Be It Resolved: Freedom of Speech Includes the Freedom to Hate," debate at University of Toronto, (2006-11-15). Hitchens argued the affirmative position. Info; video.

• “The four most overrated things in life are champagne, lobsters, anal sex and picnics.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In The New Yorker, October 16, 2006

• “If there is a sectarian war in Iraq today, or perhaps several sectarian wars, we have to understand that this was latent in the country, and in the state, and in the society all along. It was not the only possible outcome, because it had to be willed and organized, but it was certainly high on the list of probabilities.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Appointment in Mesopotamia", Slate (2007-02-05): On Iraq

• “Most of our British Muslim population is Pakistani. If that population was Indonesian or Tunisian the situation would not be the same. Pakistan has to export a lot of uneducated people, many of whom have become infected with the most barbaric reactionary ideas.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: FANATICS OF LONDON", by Walter Owen, "Vanity Fair", (06/02/2007)

• “It is said that Louis Farrakhan’s racist crackpot Nation of Islam and its sectarian gang gets young men off drugs. For all I know it does, it may, but that does not recommend it, to me, nor does it prove anything of its theology. Whereas I can tell you that of the suicide bombing population one hundred percent is faith-based. And I don’t think that in itself disapproves faith, but I think it should make you skeptical of that kind of random sampling. Of the genital mutilation community the same can be said.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Authors@Google, August 16, 2007, YouTube

• “If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Authors@Google, August 16, 2007, YouTube

• “My challenge is really to say, 'Can you name me a moral action or a statement that has been made by a believer that couldn't have been made by a non-believer?”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Some people say that without God, people would give themselves permission to do anything. [Yet] only with God, only with the view that God’s on your side, can people give themselves permission to do things that otherwise would be called satanic.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Freedom From Religion Foundation, 21/10/2007

• “Is there anything that is forbidden to anybody who says they have God on their side? Who says they have God with them? Is there any evil that they forbid themselves to do?”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Is Christianity the Problem?", debate with Dinesh D'Souza, 22/10/2007.

• “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I'm not afraid of death myself, because I'm not gonna know I'm dead. I'm awed a bit by the idea, but I'm perfectly reconciled to it. Certainly I am, as everyone is, reconciled to everyone else's death but their own. They think an exception can be made in their own case.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in "Christmas with Christopher Hitchens", by Gregg LaGambina, The A.V. Club (20 December 2007)

• “I say I'm an anti-theist because I think it would be rather awful if it was true. If there was a permanent, total, around-the-clock, divine supervision...an invigilation of everything you did...you would never have a waking or sleeping moment where you weren't being watched and controlled and supervised by some celestial entity, from the moment of conception til...well not even to your death, because it's only after death that the real fun begins, isn't it? It would be like living in North Korea.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “You give me the awful impression, I hate to have say it, of someone who hasn't read any of the arguments against your position ever.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “I don't see how you can be saying this. Look. You want to take...you want your god to take responsibility for the huge number of collapsing stars and imploding galaxies and destroyed universes and failed solar systems that have left us in this tiny corner on the one planet in this petty solar system that can support life some of the time on some of its surface. And you want a creator who filled this earth with species, since life began 99% of which are now extinct already...and this is some design, isn't it?”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “Hannity: I am a believer. I believe in a creator.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Hitchens: And that's where it stops, or you think this creator cares about you too?”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007, interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “No, no...that is what our minds demand. We look for patterns”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007, interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “Hannity: You seem to be angry with religion, angry with God. Am I wrong in my perception?”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Hitchens: Not with God, obviously, that would be absurd.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007, interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “My book expresses, I rather say, contempt and hostility to this constant religious intimidation and clerical bullying to which we're being subjected. My book is part of an attempt to arrange and organize a push back against this...whether it's the parties of god destroying Iraqi civil society or bigots in America trying to have pseudo science taught in our schools or a pope who says that AIDS may be bad...and limbo by the way may have been a mistake, but let's talk about hell in any way... AIDS isn't as bad as condoms.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007, interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “We had enough of people who think like you, that they know what God wants and that they've got god on their side. That they can tell us what to do or what to think in this way.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007, interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “[Religion] is innately irrational.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007, interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “Well if you reduce religion to social work, so does USAID produce...do all that. Actually, a secular organization, actually rather more convincingly. Most of the great philanthropist of the united states have been atheists...doesn't prove that atheism is correct.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007, interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

• “The progress that's made … in any argument or in any discussion is by confrontation. That's a dialectical fact. People say "oh let's have less heat and more light," fatuously. There's only one source of light. It happens to be heat.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: May 4, 2008 TimesTalk .

• “An impressive thing about India is the way in which it has almost as many Muslim citizens, who live with greater prospects of peace and prosperity, as does Pakistan. This comity and integration is one of the many targets of the suicide killers, and it is another reason why firm, warm solidarity with India is the most pressing need of the present hour.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It [Obama's Nobel peace prize] would be like giving someone an Oscar in the hope that it would encourage them to make a decent motion picture.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We are not occupying Afghanistan, we are there as guests of a government, at their request.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Morning Meeting on MSNBC (2009-12-04): On the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan

• “Inanity is pretending that Afghanistan will go away if we leave.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Morning Meeting on MSNBC (2009-12-04): On the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan

• “And that's why I ask myself, why do the worshippers of this god want to convict him of being such a crummy designer? Most of his creations die off and the rest suffer miserably. And the redemptive offers just don't somehow take: of being cruel, and capricious, and bungling, and incompetent, (Why?) and callous as a father.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Debate: Christopher Hitchens vs John Lennox - Is God Great? [2009]

• “At the moment, it’s very clear to me the most toxic form that religion takes is the Islamic form… The whole idea of wanting to end up with Sharia with a religion-governed state — a state of religious law — and the best means of getting there is Jihad, Holy War, that Muslims have a special right to feel aggrieved enough to demand this is absolute obscene wickedness and I think their religion is nonsense, in its entirety.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The idea that God speaks to some illiterate merchant warlord in Arabia, and he’s able to write this down perfectly and it contains the answers to all — don’t waste my time with that bulls**t. Also, the archangel Gabriel speaks only Arabic, it seems? Crap.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “All this could be part of a plan. But it’s some plan, isn’t it?; With mass destruction, pitiless extermination and annihilation going on all the time.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Great God Debate", Christopher Hitchens vs. David Wolpe, 23/03/2010

• “This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be “phobic.” A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Test of Tolerance", Slate (August 2010)

• “To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Topic of Cancer", Vanity Fair (September 2010)

• “The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Free Exercise of Religion? No, Thanks." Slate (September 6, 2010).

• “It's a big mistake to think that your own cause, or your own country, or your own side has God in its corner. For one thing, it commits the sin of pride.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Christopher Hitchens vs. William Dembski, 18/11/2010

• “Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things... one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: BBC Newsnight Special: Christopher Hitchens, 29 November 2010

• “Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner, rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some dreary motel or latrine, with an expired Visa card having tried to pay well over the odds to be peed upon by some Apache transvestite.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hitch 22: A Memoir (Twelve/Atlantic Books, 2010), p. 117

• “The gods that we've made are exactly the gods you'd expect to be made by a species that's about half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Christopher Hitchens vs. Barry Brummett, 04/06/2011

• “Three words for those who want to put the Christ back in Christmas: Jingle Bell Rock.”

  Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

More