Christopher Hitchens Quotes

Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.

People defend nothing more violently than the pretenses they live by.

I saw people who were hostile; they had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again.

Why do I have to keep proving to people that I am not a liar?!

In case you haven't noticed, people get hard-hearted against the people they hurt. Because they can't stand it. Literally. To think we did that to someone. I did that. So we think of all the reasons why it's okay we did whatever we did.

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes them strive to justify themselves. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts their sense of importance, and arouses resentment.

If people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing.

I feel like people who are guarded and shut off, I feel like they should have to wear a button that says, "shut down", "guarded" or something.

With comedy, a lot of people develop their sense of humor as a defense mechanism.

Rationalizing is the self-exculpation which occurs when we feel ourselves, or our group, accused of misapprehension or error.

I like to think I'm just talkin' in my defense.

The worst-tempered people I've ever met were people who knew they were wrong.

You start talking about God and a lot of people are going to become very defensive.

The ego does not want to be wrong, ever.

People who are burdened by acute misgivings about their coping capabilities suffer much distress and expend much effort in defensive action... they cannot get themselves to do things they find subjectively threatening even though they are objectively safe. They may even shun easily manageable activities because they see them as leading to more threatening events over which they will be unable to exercise adequate control.

I am right. I'm always right. One time I thought I was wrong, I found out I was right.

I'm an extremist? I don't think so. I think people that call me an extremist are extremely brain dead and soulless.

We live in a world, a medieval type of world, where someone can accuse you - through gossip and hearsay, and all of a sudden you're supposed to respond to specific charges from people you don't know, are not aware of who these people are, and you're supposed to respond to their specific allegations?

Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover will prove. And if the Thinker thinks passionately enough, the Prover will prove the thought so conclusively that you will never talk a person out of such a belief, even if it is something as remarkable as the notion that there is a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft ("GOD") who will spend all eternity torturing people who do not believe in his religion.

Some people perceive me as an assassin or at least someone who can slip under your guard with a knife. But if you watch what I do, that's almost never the case. I'm just trying to keep the balloon in the air. It rarely turns into anything combative.

I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.)

I'm not a fool and I won't be taken for a ride. I will stand up for my self but at the same time I don't presume the worst and I don't see people coming at me with negativity. Until they do.

I will never understand why people get so upset at things I don't even remember saying.

I have two rules for living in the world. I never say anything negative about anyone, because that won't get you anywhere. And two, if people confront me with certain questions, if they are not right, I will not answer them.

You haven't lived until you've basked in the adoration of people.