Christopher Hitchens

Knowing that we are primates, I think, is a fascinating discovery, and a very interesting and rather cheering one. ”

Read with care, George Orwell's diaries, from the years 1931 to 1949, can greatly enrich our understanding of how Orwell transmuted the raw material of everyday experience into some of his best-known novels and polemics. ”

When I look back on what I did for the Left, I'm in a small way quite proud of some of it - I only wish I'd done more. ”

It's impossible, I think, however much I'd become disillusioned politically or evolve into a post-political person, I don't think I'd ever change my view that socialism is the best political moment humans have ever come up with. ”

I do not believe any of the statistical claims that are made about public opinion. I don't see why anybody does. ”

A lot of people, because of my contempt for the false consolations of religion, think of me as a symbolic public opponent of that in extremis. And sometimes that makes me feel a bit alarmed, to be the repository of other people's hope. ”

The people who tend to raise antiwar slogans will do so generally when it's American or British interests involved. ”

The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition. ”

Say 'Toronto' or 'Ontario,' and the immediate thought associations are with a somewhat blander version of North America: a United States with a welfare regime and a more polite street etiquette, and the additionally reassuring visage of Queen Elizabeth on the currency. ”

Of course, I do everything for money. ”