The Passing of a Controversial Figure

[J.O.]

Author Christopher Hitchens has died from complications due to esophageal cancer. He could be both inspiring and infuriating, often in the same paragraph.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16212418?postId=111194721#comment_111194721

[Kip Powick]

The prolific Christopher Hitchens gloried in being quotable, particularly when he was at his most irascible and incendiary. His collected bon mots – in books, online essays and magazine articles – run into the hundreds, but here are a baker’s dozen of the best:

1. “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.”

2. “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.”

3. “A good liar must have a good memory. Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.”

4. “Cheap booze is a false economy.”

5. About Sarah Palin: “She’s got no charisma of any kind, [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.”

6. “If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.”

7. “The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that ‘if English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me’.”

8. About Mother Teresa: “She was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.”

9. “Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.”

10. “[O]wners 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.”

11. About George W. Bush: “He is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things.”

12. About Michael Moore: “Europeans think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they’ve taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities.” — his description of American filmmaker Michael Moore.

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

[GDR]

Here is a link to an article on Chris Hitchens from the BBC.

BBC on Hitchens

I certainly differed with Hitchens when it came to his views on Christianity but he had a brilliant mind and his newspaper columns were alway interesting and intellectually stimulating. He'll be missed.

Greg

[chockalicious]

I think part of what gets lost with Hitchens is that while he was always good for a sound bite, it was always backed up with sound reasoning and compelling arguement.

While I did not agree with all of his work I always found it interesting.

[J.O.]

I doubt you could find anyone other than Hitchens himself who agreed with all of what he said. That's part of what made him so interesting. And I agree with you Chock, he made some very compelling arguments. It's part of the reason why he was hated by some in "the church".

[Guest ACSideStick]

Hitchens has learned more today than he did in his entire life - or not.