Richard Dawkins Quotes

Christopher Hitchens was a wit, a charmer, and a troublemaker, and to those who knew him well, he was a gift from - dare I say it - God.

I came to know Gore Vidal in the mid-1980s, when I was living in southern Italy, virtually a neighbour, and our friendship lasted until his death in 2012. Needless to say, he was a complicated and often combative man.

Christopher Hitchens was a great warrior, a magnificent orator, a pugilist and a gentleman. He was kind, but he took no prisoners when arguing with idiots.

… establishment bobblehead Fareed Zakaria

Not even the severest critics of Jeffrey Archer can deny his style.

Juan Williams is a very sharp guy.

Vidal was a novelist, an essayist, a playwright, a screenwriter, and many other things. Buckley started a magazine, hosted a TV show, lead a political movement, and was a master debater. They were multihyphenates in a way that you rarely see anymore.

Christopher Hitchens is perhaps the greatest orator ever. He's such a famous atheist.

Great eloquence we cannot get, except from human genius.

Eloquence is logic on fire.

Eloquence, to produce her full effect, should start from the head of the orator, as Pallas from the brain of Jove, completely armed and equipped. Diffidence, therefore, which is so able a mentor to the writer, would prove a dangerous counsellor for the orator.

Eloquence wins its great and enduring fame quite as much from the benches of our opponents as from those of our friends.

Mohammed Ali. He's much more than a boxer. He's also a passionate idealist who fought for his people. I respect him - and, of course, he was very handsome in his younger days.

I really like and admire Michael Moore.

I'm friends with Studs Terkel.

I probably learned more about Marion Barry listening to Chris Rock than I did reading a headline.

Dennis Cooper, God help him, is a born writer.

Eloquence is vehement simplicity.

[On Ezra Pound:] A village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not.

In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill, For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around; And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.

Jesse Joyce is a great writer.

There is no talent so pernicious as eloquence to those who have it under command.

Gold were as good as twenty orators.

Another older writer that had a huge influence on me is Chekhov. More contemporarily, it's hard to say.

Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.