High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

If god really wanted people to be free of [wicked thoughts], he should have taken more care to invent a different species.

You can be a Polish American, or an Arab American, or a Greek American but you can't be English American. Why not?

Friends call me Hitch. Maybe it can be turned into a 900-phone number. People would pay to talk to me.

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.

The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.

[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.