Search Results

“... oddballs who flit through the narrative, like Gustavus Adolphus (‘military genius’), or Christopher Marlowe (‘quite troubled’), or Savonarola (‘especially erratic monk’). The glossary at the back doesn’t help much: ‘Müller, Johann Joachim. 1661-1733. German jurist’; ‘Viret, Pierre. 1511-1571. Swiss theologian’; ‘von ...”

“... scenesters of all professions, the quick brown foxes who understand the game and like to play it: Christopher Hitchens, Michael Winner, Emin again and Jarvis Cocker, whom she wanted to impress so much when he came to her house, she hid the pot-pourri. But she’s a little nervous – though she pretends not to be – around the hedgehogs, such as Hilary ...”

“... to totality turns into cynicism. The only argument for the war against Iraq was repeatedly put by Christopher Hitchens: the majority of Iraqis were victims of Saddam and were glad to get rid of him. To this majority, the caution expressed by Western liberals could only appear deeply hypocritical. A typical middle-class Western leftist has no right to ...”

“... of the country thrown into an arena, to be scrambled for and carried off by the greediest.’Christopher Hitchens​ once wrote that in The Jungle ‘Sinclair’s realism ... got in the way of his socialism.’ Nobody could say the same about Oil! Sinclair flexes his research, but it’s always pressed into the service of the socialist cause. Once ...”

“... Bush announced that the Vietnam Syndrome had been kicked after Operation Desert Storm, but as Christopher Hitchens noted here in August, controversy over draft-dodging in the Presidential election campaign indicates that it was merely in remission. The dictionary says a syndrome can be a characteristic combination of opinions or behaviour, but the ...”

“... though, a passing waiter with an Instamatic could have easily bettered it. Nobody spoke. Not even Christopher Hitchens. And I really do hate Beckett’s prose: every sentence is an assault on my ear. So I said:     – Well I’ll do it for you. All you need is maximum ugliness and a lot of negatives. ‘Nor it the nothing never is.’ ‘Neither ...”

“... religion as the natural outcome of evolutionary pressure. It was grouped together with books by Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins to form the canon of ‘new atheism’. I’ve Been Thinking opens with an account of the open-heart surgery Dennett underwent following a near fatal heart attack. To reduce the risk of mini-strokes, his ...”

“... is particularly striking. Johnston ticks off ‘undergraduate atheists’ like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who have doubtless noticed this correlation, and scolds them for their errors about Spinoza, but I find Dawkins and Hitchens (and Sam Harris) companionable, as I find Johnston himself, and feel no ...”

“... side of it. He doesn’t have the theatrical attack and crusading passion of a true iconoclast, a Christopher Hitchens or Camille Paglia; like so many middle-aged curmudgeons, he is primarily preoccupied with what inconveniences him personally, for example that it has become all but impossible for him to enjoy dinner without the liberals sitting nearby ...”

“... Weekend World was creating its own network of clever, ambitious men. Peter Jay, Peter Mandelson, Christopher Hitchens, Brian Walden and their slightly geeky colleagues turned out to be a more influential and politically adept group than Panorama’s fist-fighting war reporters. And none was more geeky and influential than Weekend World’s creator and ...”

“... final overhang – and collapses into a company of picnickers. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris motored up to his chosen summit a while ago; and here, sure enough, stepping forward to pat the newcomer on the back and welcome him along, who should it be but Philip Pullman? ‘Magnificent ... a sane, courteous and ...”

“... doesn’t the audience will feel cheated. ‘I bet you’ve found faith now,’ believers wrote to Christopher Hitchens when he announced he had terminal cancer. He insisted he hadn’t. I’d never been envious of those who believe in an afterlife until now. It would be so much cosier than dissolution. She’s gone to the next room. Nope, can’t manage ...”

“... convinced myself that the world would end in 2007’) and an atheist who revered Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, and was certain (until he wasn’t) that only ‘dumb people were Christians’.Vance knows he’s good at appearing confident, even cocky, but suggests that it’s really ‘bitterness masquerading as arrogance’. He copes by latching ...”

“... inspired simpleton, a great big silly goose’. He makes a memorable entrance as Stephen Savage in Christopher Isherwood’s thinly fictionalised novel Lions and Shadows (1938): ‘He burst in upon us, blushing, sniggering loudly, contriving to trip over the edge of the carpet – an immensely tall, shambling boy of 19, with a great scarlet poppy-face, wild ...”

“... White House reconciles its Middle East strategy with the Book of Daniel. In the past few months, Christopher Hitchens has been shouting at many of these people on conservative talk shows. Keith Allen, who travelled to Kansas earlier this year to make a Channel 4 programme about the founders of the ‘God Hates Fags’ website, ended up screaming ...”