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"Dogma in power does have a unique chilling ingredient not exhibited by power, however ghastly, wielded for its own traditional sake."
Authority
"Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person or persons to whom I should have talked before I dared to write it. I never launch any little essay without the hope-and the fear, because the encounter may also be embarrassing-that I shall draw a letter that begins, 'Dear Mr. Hitchens, it seems that you are unaware that It is in this sense that authorship is collaborative with 'the reader.' And there's no help for it: you only find out what you ought to have known by pretending to know at least some of it already.It doesn't matter how obscure or arcane or esoteric your place of publication may be: some sweet law ensures that the person who should be scrutinizing your work eventually does do so."
Writing
"I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor."
Humor
"Not to dampen any parade, but if one asks if there is a single thing about Mr. Obama's Senate record, or state legislature record, or current program, that could possibly justify his claim to the presidency one gets ... what? Not much. Similarly lightweight unqualified 'white' candidates have overcome this objection, to be sure, but what kind of standard is that?"
Politics
"For a lot of people, their first love is what they'll always remember. For me it's always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going. If you don't let it get out of hand, it can be canalized into writing. In this country where people love to be nonjudgmental when they can be, which translates as, on the whole, lenient, there are an awful lot of bubble reputations floating around that one wouldn't be doing one's job if one didn't itch to prick."
Motivation
"The President is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the President on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm."
Leadership
"Many writers, especially male ones, have told us that it is the decease of the father which opens the prospect of one's own end, and affords an unobstructed view of the undug but awaiting grave that says 'you're next.' Unfilial as this may seem, that was not at all so in my own case. It was only when I watched Alexander [my own son] being born that I knew at once that my own funeral director had very suddenly, but quite unmistakably, stepped onto the stage. I was surprised by how calmly I took this, but also by how reluctant I was to mention it to my male contemporaries."
Reflection
"The Auden/Kallman relationship had this to be said for it: It affirmed that it's better to be blatant than latent."
Identity
"It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends."
Culture
"It would not be an exaggeration to say that the land question in Zimbabwe is the single most decisive one."
Politics
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"Most board meetings amount to little more than intellectual masturbation. They are ideas that cause thrills, chills, and satisfaction, but there is no impregnation. Nothing is ever born of them. It's intellectual masturbation."
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Personal Development
"Oh, mankind, race of crocodiles! How well I recognize you down there, and how worthy you are of yourselves!"
Author Name
Personal Development
"You know what I think? I think you've picked up the Nazi idea that Jews can't create. That they can only imitate and sell. Middlemen.' He fixed his merciless scrutiny on Frink.'Maybe so,' Frink said."
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Personal Development
"Irony and hip ennui are extremely authoritarian."
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Personal Development
"There are institutions filled with people who talk to god. we've labeled and drugged them."
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Personal Development
"Non Violence and Religion: Both designed to keep the oppressed from murdering their oppressors."
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Personal Development
"All around us were people I had spent ten years avoiding--shapeless women in wool bathing suits, dull-eyed men with hairless legs and self-conscious laughs, all Americans, all fearsomely alike. These people should be kept at home, I thought; lock them in the basement of some goddamn Elks Club and keep them pacified with erotic movies; if they want a vacation, show them a foreign art film; and if they still aren't satisfied, send them into the wilderness and run them with vicious dogs."
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Personal Development
"Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity."
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Personal Development
"Religion is based on the idea that God is an imbecile."
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Personal Development
"All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth."
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Personal Development
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