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

It's considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often or not who may be in extremis, and evangelise. I don't see why that's considered a normal thing.

A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life.

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.

Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish.

Take the risk of thinking for yourself

Allow a friend to believe in a bogus prospectus or a false promise and you cease, after a short while, to be a friend at all.