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

We have known for a long time that Prince Charles' empty sails are so rigged as to be swelled by any passing waft or breeze of crankiness and cant. He fell for the fake anthropologist Laurens van der Post. He was bowled over by the charms of homeopathic medicine. He has been believably reported as saying that plants do better if you talk to them in a soothing and encouraging way

The discovery there is no god is a great relief, because if there were, it would be like living in a celestial North Korea if there was one. You would never be able to escape.

To remember friendship is to recall those conversations that it seemed a sin to break off

The thing about religion is that it's the first and the worst. The worst because it's the first.

Skepticism rather than credulity is the highest principle that the human intellect can use to ennoble our existence.

Which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers). How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around). What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words.