To think that such a brilliant speaker will never utter another word - it's just saddening. One of the few people I've never met, but whose death I will truly mourn. On the positive side, if god does exist, it pleases me to know that he's getting an earful right now.
A very good speaker and a man who made you think and question what was accepted, and wonder why it was accepted. DD
A sad day. One of the best thinkers and writers our there. I disagree with him a lot, but he was always a good read, and always left me thinking.
I disagreed with him as much as I agreed with him, but he was a great writer, and his opinions always made someone think no matter which side of the issue they were on.
When asked if serious illness had changed his view of the afterlife, Hitchens replied: “I would say it fractionally increases my contempt for the false consolation element of religion and my dislike for the dictatorial and totalitarian part of it. “It’s considered perfectly normal in this society to approach dying people who you don’t know but who are unbelievers and say, ‘Now are you gonna change your mind?’ That is considered almost a polite question.” http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/12/16/christopher-hitchens-the-top-10-quotes-from-the-author-journalist-and-atheist-115875-23639549/#ixzz1ghx3cz2c
“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.” Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011.
He was coming to Book People in Austin promoting his Hitch-22 right before his diagnosis. I was being dragged to the adjacent women's clothes store Anthropologie, not for the first or last time, and remember how excited I was to see his name up on the marquee and meet the man who wrote all those books I enjoyed and whose debates I watched on youtube. It was almost like a memorial when the news came and his name stayed up there for a couple weeks. It was pretty certain that he wouldn't make it through the cancer even initially.
Kindly piss off... <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Gkv6zw4gnKU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
