Authors:
  1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. C
  4. Christopher Hitchens
  5. Writing

Christopher Hitchens Quotes about Writing

All Christopher Hitchens Quotes Age Alcohol Art Atheism Atheist Attitude Belief Bullying Cancer Certainty Challenges Children Choices Christianity Church Concentration Country Crime Culture Democracy Desire Doubt Dying Earth Economy Envy Evidence Evil Evolution Feelings Fighting Fun Giving Greek Hate Hatred Heart Home Innovation Insecurity Inspirational Irony Islam Jesus Language Liars Lifetime Literature Losing Lying Memories Morality Motivational Opportunity Pain Philosophy Politics Praise Prayer Pride Progress Purpose Racism Reading Religion Risk Running Sacrifice School Science Security Sin Skepticism Slavery Son Soul Struggle Stupidity Suffering Surrender Teaching Terrorism Torture Trade Values Violence Virtue Waiting War Wife Writing quotes
Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand reports of frightened and illiterate peasants who claim to have seen

Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand reports of frightened and illiterate peasants who claim to have seen miracles or to have had encounters with messiahs and prophets and redeemers who were, like them, mere humans. And this is also why we will never submit to dictation from those who display a fanatical belief in certainty and revelation.

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Writing, Hands

Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.

Christopher Hitchens
Book, Writing, Doe

I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Composing, Sentences
Simon Cottee, Thomas Cushman, Christopher Hitchens (2008). “Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left”, p.5298, NYU Press

At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centred a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Self, Risk

Forget it. Never explain; never apologize. You can either write posthumously or you can't.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Apologizing, Forget
Christopher Hitchens (2014). “Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports”, p.9, Atlantic Books Ltd

We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.

Christopher Hitchens
Religious, Lying, Writing

I can’t hope to convey the full effect of the embraces and avowals, but I can perhaps offer a crumb of counsel. If there is anybody known to you who might benefit from a letter or a visit, do not on any account postpone the writing or the making of it. The difference made will almost certainly be more than you have calculated

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Differences, Benefits
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.11, Atlantic Books Ltd

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I'll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I'm crepuscular.

Christopher Hitchens
Book, Writing, Good Day

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn't write? But that fortunately hasn't proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

Christopher Hitchens
Mean, Writing, Cases
"Atheist Hitchens stares death in the eye". "ABC News" with Tony Jones, www.abc.net.au. December 16, 2011.

Authors who moan with praise for their editors always seem to reek slightly of the Stockholm syndrome.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Editors, Praise
Christopher Hitchens (2013). “Blood, Class and Empire: The Enduring Anglo-American Relationship”, p.8, Atlantic Books Ltd

I can't compose or play music; I'm not that fortunate. But I can write and I can talk and sometimes when I'm doing either of these things I realize that I've written a sentence or uttered a thought that I didn't absolutely know I had in me... until I saw it on the page or heard myself say it.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Play, Pages
Source: www.wanliss.com

I've been writing a lot about a new form of Russian imperialism. Actually, Russian Orthodox imperialism. It's very little remarked that the cement, the political, ideological cement of the Russian regime now, communism having collapsed and imploded, is increasingly a confessional one.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Political, Littles
Source: www.npr.org

Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, United States, Matter
Christopher Hitchens (1994). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.220, Verso

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
Father, Party, Writing
Source: www.abc.net.au

Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation - is worth it to me. [It is] impossible for me to imagine having my life without going to those parties, without having those late nights, without that second bottle.

Christopher Hitchens
Party, Writing, Night
"RIP Christopher Hitchens: Provocateur and Damn Good Writer" by Monika Bauerlein, www.motherjones.com. December 16, 2011.

Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing

Christopher Hitchens
Inspiration, Reading, Writing
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.314, Atlantic Books Ltd

I'm very happy by myself - I'm lucky in that way - if I've got enough to read and something to write about and a bit of alcohol for me to add an edge, not to dull it.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Alcohol, Lucky
"Christopher Hitchens - Q&A (2010) lyrics". Interview with Brian Lamb, lyrics.az. 2010.

When I went to Czechoslovakia under the old Communist regime one day in the '80s, I thought to myself whatever I do, whatever happens to me in Prague I'm not going to use the name Kafka, I'm just not going to do it. I won't do it; it's so easy, everyone else does, I'm not going to. I'll write the first non-Kafka mentioning piece.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Names, One Day
Source: www.abc.net.au

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
"Christopher Hitchens on his memoir, Hitch-22". "Hugh Hewitt Show", www.hughhewitt.com. July 13, 2010.

I had real plans for my next decade and felt I'd worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read - if not indeed write - the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger?

Christopher Hitchens
Children, Real, Writing
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Mortality”, p.14, Atlantic Books Ltd

It's the professional deformation of many writers, and has ruined not a few. (I remember Kingsley Amis, himself no slouch, saying that he could tell on what page of the novel Paul Scott had reached for the bottle and thrown caution to the winds.)

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Wind, Bottles
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.314, Atlantic Books Ltd

Since I speak and write about this a good deal, I am often asked at public meetings, in what sometimes seems to me a rather prurient way, whether I myself or my family have 'ever been threatened' by jihadists. My answer is that yes, I have, and so has everyone else in the audience, if they have paid enough attention to the relevant bin-Ladenist broadcasts to notice the fact.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Facts, Attention
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.1497, Atlantic Books Ltd

I think I write in a fairly self-confident manner.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Thinking, Self

And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don't think anyone in my family would really feel I'd done them an injustice by saying that. We didn't see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

Christopher Hitchens
Nice, Book, Writing
"Christopher Hitchens on his memoir, Hitch-22". "Hugh Hewitt Show", www.hughhewitt.com. July 13, 2010.

You May Also Like: