Christopher Hitchens Quotes

I am a flirt: I have no heart: I have an actor's nature.

I can't stand people who try too hard.

Language and words for psychopaths are only word deep; there is no emotional colouring behind it. A psychopath can use a word like, 'I love you' but it means nothing more to him than if he said, 'I'll have a cup of coffee.'

The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care.

I saw him turn his charm on and off, like water from the tap at the kitchen sink. He said nothing of substance. He seemed to me essentially an actor.

Interesting to me, at least, is that often you meet certain king of people and you feel, in their company, extremely warm and hopeful that they care about you, but you also think that they probably have 10 other people they put their attention to. You think, "Wow, this person is making me feel so special and like they really love me." But the savvy part of me thinks, "They probably do that to everybody."

We all appear as dunces when feigning an interest in things we care nothing about.

If he didn't care about you, you couldn't upset him.

Maybe he didn’t really encourage me to do things, but he didn’t prevent me from doing them either. But after a while, I didn’t do things because I didn’t want him to think different about me. But the thing is, I wasn’t being honest. So, why would I care whether or not he loved me when he didn’t really even know me?

when people say you're charming you are in deep trouble.

The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist.

When you stop caring about something, then other people have to decide whether or not they genuinely care about you, or not.

Anybody can be charming if they don't mind faking it, saying all the stupid, obvious, nauseating things that a conscience keeps most people from saying. Happily, I don't have a conscience. I say them.

Nerves just mean that you care.

As far as I can make out, women's friendships with each other are based on a gush of lies and pretty speeches that mean nothing. You'd think they were all wolves trying to seduce each other the way they flatter and flirt when they're together.

She did not look at the daffodils. They didn't mean anything. She looked at the daffodils. She said, 'Thank you for the daffodils.

She was nervous about the future; it made her indelicate. She was one of the most unimportantly wicked women of her time --because she could not let her time alone, and yet could never be a part of it. She wanted to be the reason for everything and so was the cause of nothing. She had the fluency of tongue and action meted out by divine providence to those who cannot think for themselves. She was the master of the over-sweet phrase, the over-tight embrace.

To care for someone can mean to adore them, feed them, tend their wounds. But care can also signify sorrow, as in "bowed down by cares." Or anxiety, as in "Careful!" Or investment in an outcome, as in "Who cares?" The word love has no such range of meaning: It's pure acceptance.

I'm not really sure of anything. I have no personality or opinion on anything. I just sort of float around and lie to my dog.

That's the thing: We didn't really care. A world without love is also a world without stakes.

No man can smile in the face of adversity and mean it.

I dress up with a conscience when I think you'll be watching. I say all the right things, I don't know what I mean.

When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces. The man who'd introduced them didn't much like either of them, though he acted as if he did, anxious as he was to preserve good relations at all times. One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one.

Some people can very easily switch off and be guilt free, not that what I'm doing is about guilt, but they can completely disconnect and not care because it doesn't affect them. I've always really cared about what happens and felt a certain responsibility.

I used to say that the newspapers were tomorrow's fish and chip paper, but I didn't really mean it; I could still be hurt by what they said. After Athens, I just didn't care.