Christopher Hitchens Quotes

I think, you know, we always tell candidates, show, don't tell, what you're all about. I think Hillary Clinton's speech was an important speech that people are going to look at and they're going to see not just the attacks on Donald Trump, but also her admission that maybe she'd been part of the polarization problem as well and she could do better.

I never know what all of these guys are thinking, but Marco Rubio sounded desperate, like, We've got a leak in the dike, we got to stop this thing.

In terms of political things, I think it's important to be more direct in terms of political statements. I think in terms of philosophical and things that you plant things and see them grow lyrically or musically, it's okay to be subtle.

Many believe that Hillary Clinton was channeling President Obama during her recent speech in New York City. She focused on equality, justice, and how hard it was for her growing up as a young black man in Hawaii.

Political discourse has been reduced to "Where's the beef?" "Read my lips," and "Make my day." Where are the assassins when we really need them?

I listened to Hillary [Clinton], and I heard the double talk. She's so good at it, and I'm not making this up, that the Communist Chinese have sent their cadres to study her speeches. They say she's the finest propagandist they've ever heard.

Politicians that proclaim big words without meaning rule in democracy. At best they allow themselves to discover that it's better to be rich and healthy than sick and poor and that it is necessary to care for 'good of Poland" - clap clap, hurricane of clapping.

The thinking person's case for Romney, murmured by many of his backers, amounts to this: Vote for Mitt, you know he doesn't believe a word he says.

Jeb Bush gave a speech yesterday. He had a pretty rough time. He accidentally said that ISIS has 200,000 men instead of 20,000, and then he mispronounced the name of the terrorist group Boko Haram. So if history has taught us anything, Jeb is well on his way to winning the White House.

When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well ladies and gentleman, I'd follow the example of their nominee; don't inhale.

Often I must speak otherwise than I think. This is called diplomacy.

To the haranguers of the populace among the ancients, succeed among the moderns your writers of political pamphlets and news-papers, and your coffee-house talkers.

A great many political speeches are literary parricides; they kill their fathers.

I still think people like to hear from someone's heart and how they really feel than the old political rhetoric trying to not say the wrong thing because how would it look, would they get votes, lose votes.

I think the political process has degenerated into name-calling and extremism, and I think that that's unfortunate.

A politician is required to listen to humbug, talk humbug, condone humbug. The most we can hope for is that we don't actually believe it.

I can't stand politicians who wear God on their sleeves.

The language of politics is poetry, not prose. Jackson is poetry. Cuomo is poetry. Dukakis is a word processor.

I actually think agendas are more often found in State of the Union speeches than in inaugural speeches.

It's very hard to impose your beliefs or a specific message about any given movie. I think that audiences always extract what they want from a film even if something isn't overtly political. They may or may not get it, and it's hard to control that.

I think it was in the Rose Garden where I issued this brilliant statement: If I had a magic wand -- but the president doesn't have a magic wand. You just can't say, 'low gas.'

I think the Donald Trump's obsession is, is bigger than just polling. I mean it's funny because we've been harping on polls like never before, Trump was harping on his own polls endlessly. I mean his stump speeches would begin with him crowing about his latest poll numbers and that was just a kind of odd convergence.

Speeches are more important in politics than talking points, as a rule, and are better remembered.

I don't know a lot about politics. I like talking about human behavior. Politicians are funny to me because they often say one thing and behave a different way.

I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director.