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A Gentleman Is Never Rude Except On Purpose - I Can Honestly Be Nasty Sober, Believe You Me.
-Christopher Hitchens
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A Gentleman Is Never

Christopher Hitchens
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A Gentleman Is Never Rude Except On Purpose - I Can Honestly Be Nasty Sober, Believe You Me.

Understanding the Quote: "a gentleman is never rude except on purpose - i can honestly..."

This quote by Christopher Hitchens reflects deeply on the theme of believe. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Believe, Rude, Gentleman, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Christopher Hitchens interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens is celebrated for insightful thoughts on believe and rude. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 38857
Topic
Believe
Rude
Gentleman
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Islam In Its Origins Is Just As Shady And Approximate As Those From Which It Took Its Borrowings. It Makes Immense Claims For Itself, Invokes Prostrate Submission Or "surrender" As A Maxim To Its Adherents, And Demands Deference And Respect From Nonbelievers Into The Bargain. There Is Nothing-absolutely Nothing-in Its Teachings That Can Even Begin To Justify Such Arrogance And Presumption.
Teaching
Arrogance
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The Suicide-bombing Community Is Not Absolutely 100 Percent Religious, But It Is Pretty Nearly 100 Percent Religious.
Suicide
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The Secular Argument, Or The Liberal Argument, Is To As Much As Possible Remove Taboos So Things Do Not Become Unmentionable; To Let Some Air Into The Discussion.
Air
Argument
Secular
It Is Interesting To Find That People Of Faith Now Seek Defensively To Say That They Are No Worse Than Fascists Or Nazis Or Stalinists
People
Interesting
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As Is So Often The Case With Pieces That Appear In The 'onion,' I Honestly Could Not Decide Whether This Was A Clever Hoax Or Not - The Arguments Were Almost Exactly As Stupid As The Real Thing.
Clever
Real
Stupid
Owners Of Dogs Will Have Noticed That, If You Provide Them With Food And Water And Shelter And Affection, They Will Think You Are God. Whereas Owners Of Cats Are Compelled To Realize That, If You Provide Them With Food And Water And Affection, They Draw The Conclusion That They Are God.
Inspirational
Dog
Cat
To The Dumb Question, 'why Me?' The Cosmos Barely Bothers To Return The Reply, 'why Not?'
Dumb
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Philosophy Begins Where Religion Ends, Just As By Analogy Chemistry Begins Where Alchemy Runs Out, And Astronomy Takes The Place Of Astrology.
Running
Philosophy
Astrology
Once You Assume A Creator And A Plan, It Makes Us Objects In A Cruel Experiment Whereby We Are Created Sick And Commanded To Be Well.
Sick
Religion
Atheism
Religion Is Not Just Incongruent With Morality, But In Essential Ways Incompatible With It.
Essentials
Way
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I Think The Socialist Movement, By Removing Many, Many People From Grinding Stagnation And Poverty And Overwork, Does Enable People Not Just To Lead Better Lives But To Be Better People.
Thinking
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In The Aftermath Of The Recent Wave Action In The Indian Ocean, Even The Archbishop Of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williamson [sic], Proved Himself A Latter-day Voltairean By Whimpering That He Could See How This Might Shake Belief In A Friendly Creator. Williamson Is Of Course A Notorious Fool, Who Does An Almost Perfect Imitation Of A Bleating And Frightened Sheep, But Even So, One Is Forced To Rub One's Eyes In Astonishment. Is It Possible That A Grown Man Could Live So Long And Still Have His Personal Composure, Not To Mention His Lifetime Job Description, Upset By A Large Ripple Of Seawater?
Atheist
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Anyone Who Can Look Me In The Eye And Say They Prefer The Story Of Moses Or Jesus Or Mohammed To The Life Of Socrates Is Intellectually Defective.
Jesus
Eye
Looks
But You'll Notice, You Will Notice That Russia And China, Invariably At The United Nations, Move To Block American Action, To Repress Or Hem In Or Punish Other Kinds Of Outlaw. Who Stands Behind Mugabi At The United Nations? Russia And China Do. Who Tried Successfully To Prevent The United Nations From Speaking With One Voice On Its Most Signal Violation Of Its Resolutions, Iraq? Russia And China, Again. North Korea The Same. Burma The Same.
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Russia
I'm Quite Convinced In My Own Mind That Those Who Were Arguing That [the Need To Intervene In Iraq] Was A More Immediate One Than Some Believed - Were I'm Sure Convinced That They Were Right On Fact, I Don't Think They Were Making It Up. So As To Lying, I Don't Think It Has Been Established That Any Lies Were Told.
Lying
Thinking
Iraq
One Can Become Quite Used To The Specter Of The Eternal Footman, Like Some Lethal Old Bore Lurking In The Hallway At The End Of The Evening, Hoping For The Chance To Have A Word. And I Don't So Much Object To His Holding My Coat In That Marked Manner, As If Mutely Reminding Me That It's Time To Be On My Way. No, It's The Snickering That Gets Me Down.
Coats
Way
Evening
Redemption Is Promised At The Low Price Of Surrender Of Your Critical Faculties.
Religion
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Many Religions Now Come Before Us With Ingratiating Smirks And Outspread Hands, Like An Unctuous Merchant In A Bazaar. They Offer Consolation And Solidarity And Uplift, Competing As They Do In A Marketplace. But We Have A Right To Remember How Barbarically They Behaved When They Were Strong And Were Making An Offer That People Could Not Refuse.
Uplifting
Strong
Atheist
In Ridiculing A Pathetic Human Fallacy, Which Seeks Explanation Where None Need Be Sought And Which Multiplies Unnecessary Assumptions, One Should Not Mimic Primitive Ontology In Order To Challenge It. Better To Dispose Of The Needless Assumption Altogether. This Holds True For Everything From Noah's Flood To The Holocaust.
Atheist
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If Asked My Opinion About Virginity, I Would Say, "i'm Opposed To It." I Don't Think It Deserves To Be Celebrated, At Any Rate. Or At Least, If I'm Not Opposed, I'm Very Highly Skeptical And Critical Of It.
Thinking
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Rate
It Was Not For The Sake Of Oil That The Risky Decision To Cease This Corrupt Coexistence Was Made. But At Least Now The Iraqi People Have A Chance Of Controlling Their Own Main Resource, And It Will Be Our Task To Ensure That The Funding And Revenue Are Transparent Instead Of Opaque.
Oil
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Decision
You Don't Say 'they All Do It' Unless You Know You've Been Doing It Too.
Knows
I Don't Have Any Terrific Self-esteem Issues But I Do Sometimes Realise I've Been Too Lucky And That I'm Over-praised. It Makes Me Nervous. I Have This Sense Of Being Overrated.
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Religion Gets Its Morality From Us. We Don't Get Our Morality From Religion.
Religion
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To Remember Friendship Is To Recall Those Conversations That It Seemed A Sin To Break Off
Break Off
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The Only Real Radicalism In Our Time Will Come As It Always Has—from People Who Insist On Thinking For Themselves And Who Reject Party-mindedness.
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A Melancholy Lesson Of Advancing Years Is The Realisation That You Can't Make Old Friends.
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The Offer Of Certainty, The Offer Of Complete Security, The Offer Of An Impermeable Faith That Can’t Give Way, Is An Offer Of Something Not Worth Having. I Want To Live My Life Taking The Risk All The Time That I Don’t Know Anything Like Enough Yet; That I Haven’t Understood Enough; That I Can’t Know Enough; That I’m Always Hungrily Operating On The Margins Of A Potentially Great Harvest Of Future Knowledge And Wisdom. I Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way.
Giving
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I Have More Than Once In My Time Woken Up Feeling Like Death.
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If You Gave [jerry] Falwell An Enema He Could Be Buried In A Matchbox.
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A Good Liar Must Have A Good Memory.
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One Of The Great Questions Of Philosophy Is, Do We Innately Have Morality, Or Do We Get It From Celestial Dictation? A Study Of The Ten Commandments Is A Very Good Way Of Getting Into And Resolving That Issue.
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Forget It. Never Explain; Never Apologize. You Can Either Write Posthumously Or You Can't.
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The Polls Undoubtedly Help To Decide What People Think, But Their Most Important Long-term Influence May Be On How People Think. The Interrogative Process Is Very Distinctly Weighted Against The Asking Of An Intelligent Question Or The Recording Of A Thoughtful Answer.
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Intelligent
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The Easiest Way To Establish A Dictatorship Is To Claim You Are God's Representative On Earth.
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There's No Hell Mentioned In The Old Testament. The Punishment Of The Dead Is Not Specified There. It's Only With Gentle Jesus, Meek And Mild, That The Idea Of Eternal Torture For Minor Transgressions Is Introduced.
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Evelyn Waugh Was In Error When He Said That In New York There Was A Neurosis In The Air Which The Inhabitants Mistook For Energy. There Was, Rather, A Tensile Excitement In The Air Which Made One Think - Made Me Think For Many Years - That Time Spent Asleep In New York Was Somehow Time Wasted. Whether This Thought Has Lengthened Or Shortened My Life I Shall Never Know, But It Has Certainly Colored It.
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I Want To Urge You Very Strongly To Travel As Much As You Can, And To Evolve Yourself As An Internationalist. It's As Important A Part Of Your Education As A Radical As The Reading Of Any Book.
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The Cause Of My Life Has Been To Oppose Superstition. It's A Battle You Can't Hope To Win - It's A Battle That's Going To Go On Forever. It's Part Of The Human Condition.
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You Notice How Liberals Keep Saying, 'if Only Islam Would Have A Reformation' - It Can't Have One. It Says It Can't. It's Extremely Dangerous In That Way.
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Those Who Had Alleged That A Million Civilians Were Dying From Sanctions Were Willing, Nay Eager, To Keep Those Same Murderous Sanctions If It Meant Preserving Saddam!
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Sanctions
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[i]n A Place With Absolutely No Private Or Personal Life, With The Incessant Worship Of A Mediocre Career-sadist As The Only Culture, Where All Citizens Are The Permanent Property Of The State, The Highest Form Of Pointlessness Has Been Achieved.
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Culture
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We Live Only A Few Conscious Decades, And We Fret Ourselves Enough For Several Lifetimes.
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Lifetime
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All This Could Be Part Of A Plan. There Is No Way An Atheist Can Prove It’s Not. But It’s Some Plan, Isn't It? With Mass Destruction, Pitiless Extermination, Annihilation Going On All The Time. And All Of This Set In Motion On A Scale That’s Absolutely Beyond Our Imagination, In Order That The Pope Can Tell People Not To Jerk Off.
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In One Way, I Suppose, I Have Been 'in Denial' For Some Time, Knowingly Burning The Candle At Both Ends And Finding That It Often Gives A Lovely Light.
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Giving
Lovely
Well, To The People Who Pray For Me To Not Only Have An Agonising Death, But Then Be Reborn To Have An Agonising And Horrible Eternal Life Of Torture, I Say, 'well, Good On You. See You There.'
People
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[even If The U.s. Doesn't Attack] Saddam Hussein Is Not Going To Survive. His Regime Is On The Verge Of Implosion.
Hussein
Regimes
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The Whole Reason For The Success Of Dr. King's Civil-rights Movement Was That It Was Not A Movement For Itself. The Civil-rights Movement Understood Very Clearly, And Stated Very Beautifully, That It Was A Question Of Humanism, Not A Sectarian Movement At All.
Kings
Rights
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Totalitarian Is A Cliché, Dictatorship Is Based On Clichéd Thinking, On Very Tried And Tested Uniform Stuff. They Don't Mind That They're Boring, They Don't Mind That They're Obvious, Their Point Is Made.
Thinking
Mind
Stuff
It Is Exactly The Fear Of Revenge That Motivates The Deepest Crimes, From The Killing Of The Enemy's Children Lest They Grow Up To Play Their Own Part, To The Erasure Of The Enemy's Graveyards And Holy Places So That His Hated Name Can Be Forgotten.
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Growing Up
Revenge
Even With All The Advantages Of Retrospect, And A Lot Of Witnesses Dead And Gone, You Can't Make Your Life Look As If You Intended It Or You Were Consistent. All You Can Show Is How You Dealt With Various Hands.
Hands
Looks
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Human Beings Are Pattern-seeking Animals Who Will Prefer Even A Bad Theory Or A Conspiracy Theory To No Theory At All.
Animal
Patterns
Conspiracy
Demands That You Believe The Impossible Do Not Lead To Peaceful Outcomes.
Believe
Peaceful
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Since It Is Obviously Inconceivable That All Religions Can Be Right, The Most Reasonable Conclusion Is That They Are All Wrong.
Atheist
Atheism
Conclusion
The Creation Story Is Ridiculous Garbage. And Has Given Us A Completely False Picture Of Our Origin As A Species And The Origins Of The Cosmos. If You Want A Good Mythical Story It Would Be The Life Of Socrates.
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Would Be
Cosmos
There Is An Unusually High And Consistent Correlation Between The Stupidity Of A Given Person And That Person’s Propensity To Be Impressed By The Measurement Of Iq.
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Your Least Favorite Virtue, Or Nominee For The Most Overrated One? Faith. Closely Followed—in View Of The Overall Shortage Of Time—by Patience.
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Views
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Not Many People Come Through Esophageal Cancer And Live To Talk About It, Or Not For Long.
Cancer
Long
People
Billy Graham Is A Boring, Racist Charlatan.
Religion
Racist
Boring
Let Me Tell You Something: For Hundreds Of Thousands Of Years, This Kind Of Discussion Would Have Been Impossible To Have, Or Those Like Us Would Have Been Having It At The Risk Of Our Lives. Religion Now Comes To Us In This Smiley-face, Ingratiating Way — Because It’s Had To Give So Much More Ground And Because We Know So Much More. But You’ve Got No Right To Forget The Way It Behaved When It Was Strong, And When It Really Did Believe That It Had God On Its Side.
Strong
Believe
Years
I Can’t Hope To Convey The Full Effect Of The Embraces And Avowals, But I Can Perhaps Offer A Crumb Of Counsel. If There Is Anybody Known To You Who Might Benefit From A Letter Or A Visit, Do Not On Any Account Postpone The Writing Or The Making Of It. The Difference Made Will Almost Certainly Be More Than You Have Calculated
Writing
Differences
Benefits
Ronald Reagan Used To Alarm Other Constituencies By Speaking Freely About The End Times Foreshadowed In The Bible.
Talking
Alarms
Used
The Great Thing About The United States And The Historically Magnetic Effect It Has Had On A Lot Of People Like Me Is Its Generosity, To Put It Simply.
Generosity
People
United States
I Have Always Found It Quaint And Rather Touching That There Is A Movement [libertarians] In The Us That Thinks Americans Are Not Yet Selfish Enough.
Selfish
Thinking
Touching
Cluster Bombs Are Perhaps Not Good In Themselves, But When They Are Dropped On Identifiable Concentrations Of Taliban Troops, They Do Have A Heartening Effect.
Bombs
Troops
Concentration
We Become Accomplices In Evil Every Time We Seek To Soothe The Unslakable Appetites Of The Crime Family That Sits In Pyongyang.
Evil
Politics
Crime
The Fact Is: It's True What They Say About The United States. It Is A Land Of Opportunity. It Is Too Various To Get Bored With It.
Opportunity
Land
Bored
Faith Is The Surrender Of The Mind; It's The Surrender Of Reason, It's The Surrender Of The Only Thing That Makes Us Different From Other Mammals. It's Our Need To Believe, And To Surrender Our Skepticism And Our Reason, Our Yearning To Discard That And Put All Our Trust Or Faith In Someone Or Something, That Is The Sinister Thing To Me. Of All The Supposed Virtues, Faith Must Be The Most Overrated.
Atheist
Believe
Animal
You Can't Have Occupation And Human Rights.
Rights
Occupation
Human Rights
There Are Many, Many Discrepant Views Within The Shia Theology About What's The Proper Role Of Religion In Society Or In The State, Should It Rule Now, Should It Claim To Govern People In The Here And Now, Or Should It Wait Until The Messiah, The 12th Imam, Comes Back And Would It Only Be Then Appropriate For Religious Rule To Bring About A World Of Universal Justice And Vindication.
Religious
Views
People
In The Grip Of A Neurological Disorder, I Am Fast Losing Control Of Words Even As My Relationship With The World Has Been Reduced To Them.
Losing Control
World
Disorder
The Moment Of Near Despair Is Quite Often The Moment That Precedes Courage.
Despair
Moments
When I Abandoned The Smoking Habit Of More Than Three Decades I Was Given A Supposedly Helpful Pill Called Wellbutrin. But As Soon As I Discovered That This Was The Brand Name For An Antidepressant, I Tossed The Bottle Away. There May Be Successful Methods For Overcoming The Blues But For Me They Cannot Include A Capsule That Says: 'fool Yourself Into Happiness, While Pretending Not To Do So.' I Should Actually Want My Mind To Be Strong Enough To Circumvent Such A Trick.
Strong
Successful
Names
The Politicized Sponsors Of This Pseudoscientific Nonsense Should Be Ashamed To Live, Let Alone Die. If You Want To Take Part In The “war” Against Cancer, And Other Terrible Maladies, Too, Then Join The Battle Against Their Lethal Stupidity.
War
Cancer
Stupidity
There Is No Such Thing As Closure, And It Wouldn't Be Worth Having If It Were Available, Because All It Would Mean Is That Something That Was Quite An Important Part Of You Had Gone Numb.
Mean
Important
Gone
If You Look At Any Muslim Society And You Make A Scale Of How Developed They Are, And How Successful The Economy Is, It's A Straight Line. It Depends On How Much They Emancipate Their Women.
Successful
Looks
Lines
The Russians Are Going To Be Expansionist Whether We [usa] Provoke Them To It Or Not. Russians Keep Saying That We're Trying To Encircle Them. In What Sense Does The Independence Of Kosovo, A Land-locked Province, Former Yugoslavia, With No Common Border With Russia, Threaten Russia With Encirclement? This Is Insulting. In What Sense Does The Independence Of Georgia Constitute An Encirclement? What We Are Facing, And We May As Well Give It Its Right Name, Is What I Called It Earlier, A Chauvinistic, Theocratic In Part, Xenophobic Russian Imperialism.
Land
Yugoslavia
Names
The Violence In The Bible Is Appalling.
Violence
It's True That Obscenity Is A Matter Of Taste And In The Eye Of The Beholder.
Eye
Matter
Taste
I Can't Compose Or Play Music; I'm Not That Fortunate. But I Can Write And I Can Talk And Sometimes When I'm Doing Either Of These Things I Realize That I've Written A Sentence Or Uttered A Thought That I Didn't Absolutely Know I Had In Me... Until I Saw It On The Page Or Heard Myself Say It.
Writing
Play
Pages
If We Have Free Will, By Definition We Cannot Be Granted It. We Can't Be Given It. My [-audio-recording-distorted-] Paradox States That 'of Course We Have Free Will, We Have No Choice.' To Say That It's A Gift Is To Negate The Whole Concept Of Free Will On Its Face. So, If That Isn't Self-evident, I Can't Think Of Anything That Would Meet The Definition Of Being Self-evident.
Thinking
Self
Choices
So There's Nothing More Vulgar Than The Sound Of Someone Saying, God Bless America, Someone Who Doesn't Really Believe It, But He Thinks It Will Make Him Look Good To Other People. I Think It's The Most Nauseating Spectacle.
Believe
Thinking
America
We Owe A Huge Debt To Galileo For Emancipating Us All From The Stupid Belief In An Earth-centered Or Man-centered (let Alone God-centered) System. He Quite Literally Taught Us Our Place And Allowed Us To Go On To Make Extraordinary Advances In Knowledge.
Atheist
Stupid
Men
Religion Makes Intelligent People Say And Do Wacky Things, Believe And Affirm Crazy Things.
Crazy
Believe
Intelligent
In Particular, It Is Absurd To Hope To Banish Envy Of Other People's Possessions Or Fortunes, If Only Because The Spirit Of Envy Can Lead To Emulation And Ambition And Have Positive Consequences.
Ambition
People
Envy
There Are Also People Who Say It's God's Curse On Me That I Should Have It Near My Throat Because That Was The Organ Of Blasphemy Which I Used For So Many Years. I've Used Many Other Organs To Blaspheme As Well If It Comes To That.
Atheist
Should Have
Years
For A Lot Of People, Their First Love Is What They'll Always Remember. For Me It's Always Been The First Hate, And I Think That Hatred, Though It Provides Often Rather Junky Energy, Is A Terrific Way Of Getting You Out Of Bed In The Morning And Keeping You Going.
Morning
Hate
First Love
A Point, Like A Joke, Is A Terrible Thing To Miss.
Missing
Terrible
Terrible Things
Perhaps The Values Of Socialists Can Only Be Realized By Socialists In A Nonsocialist Society.
Values
Why Do Humans Exist? A Major Part Of The Answer: Because Pikaia Gracilens Survived The Burgess Decimation.
Atheist
Science
Religion
One Must State It Plainly. Religion Comes From The Period Of Human Pre-history Where Nobody - Not Even The Mighty Democritus Who Concluded That All Matter Was Made From Atoms - Had The Smallest Idea What Was Going On.
Ideas
Infancy Is
Matter
By Trying To Adjust To The Findings That It Once Tried So Viciously To Ban And Repress, Religion Has Only Succeeded In Restating The Same Questions That Undermined It In Earlier Epochs. What Kind Of Designer Or Creator Is So Wasteful And Capricious And Approximate? What Kind Of Designer Or Creator Is So Cruel And Indifferent? And - Most Of All - What Kind Of Designer Or Creator Only Chooses To "reveal" Himself To Semi-stupefied Peasants In Desert Regions?
Trying
Desert
Kind
Everyone In Iran Is Perceived To Be A Child With A Paternal Authority Vested In The Guardian Council And The Sufi Elders. They're Supposed To Be Grateful. They Can Never For A Moment Not Be Afforded This Wonderful Protection. The Father Who Will Never Go Away. The Father Who Will Never Quit Caring For Them.
Children
Father
Grateful
My Political Life Has Been Informed By The View That If There Was Any Truth To Religion There Wouldn't Really Be Any Need For Politics.
Views
Political
Needs
When I Am At Home, I Never Go Near The Synagogue Unless, Say, There Is A Bar Or Bat Mitzvah Involving The Children Of Friends. But When I Am Traveling, In A Country Where Jewish Life Is Scarce Or Endangered, I Often Make A Visit To The Shul.
Country
Children
Home
It's Called Faith Because It's Not Knowledge.
In My Life, The Only Certainty Is To Be Uncertain. I'm An Unbeliever Who Believes In Skepticism. I'm Only Sure About Being Unsure.
Believe
Uncertain
Skepticism
One Has Children In The Expectation Of Dying Before Them. In Fact, You Want To Make Damn Sure You Die Before Them, Just As You Plant A Tree Or Build A House Knowing, Hoping That It Will Outlive You. That's How The Human Species Has Done As Well As It Has.
Children
Knowing
Expectations
The Diet Book Is One Of Those Fool-and-money Separation Devices That Seems, Like Roulette Or Slot Machines, Never To Lose Its Power.
Food
Book
Machines
As The Cleansing Ocean Closes Over Bin Laden's Carcass, May The Earth Lie Lightly On The Countless Graves Of Those He Sentenced Without Compunction To Be Burned Alive Or Dismembered In The Street.
Lying
Ocean
Alive
This Huge And Terrible Industry [the Slave Trade] Was Blessed By All Churches And For A Long Time Aroused Absolutely No Religious Protest. . . . In The Eighteenth Century, A Few Dissenting Mennonites And Quakers In America Began To Call For Abolition, As Did Some Freethinkers Like Thomas Paine.
Religious
Blessed
America
Thus, Though I Dislike To Differ With Such A Great Man, Voltaire Was Simply Ludicrous When He Said That If God Did Not Exist It Would Be Necessary To Invent Him. The Human Invention Of God Is The Problem To Begin With.
Atheist
Men
Atheism
I Leave It To The Faithful To Burn Each Other's Churches And Mosques And Synagogues, Which They Can Be Always Relied Upon To Do
Faithful
Church
Mosques
Europeans Think Americans Are Fat, Vulgar, Greedy, Stupid, Ambitious And Ignorant And So On. And They've Taken As Their Own, As Their Representative American Someone Who Actually Embodies All Of Those Qualities.
Stupid
Taken
Thinking
Everything Everyone Thinks They Know About [mother Teresa] Is False. It Must Be The Single Most Successful Emotional Con Job Of The Twentieth Century.
Mother
Jobs
Successful
Never Ask While You Are Doing It If What You Are Doing Is Fun. Don't Introduce Even Your Most Reliably Witty Acquaintance As Someone Who Will Set The Table On A Roar.
Witty
Fun
Tables
North Korea Is A Necrocracy, Or A Mauselocracy Or A Thanatocracy In Which The One [kim Il-sung] Is Diffused Into Being With The Other [kim Jong Il], And Where Both Of Them Are Said To Have Had Miraculous Births Attended By Miraculous Phenomena Such As, For Example, Birds Singing In Korean, When They Were Born.
Korea
Bird
Singing
Cancer Victimhood Contains A Permanent Temptation To Be Self-centred And Even Solipsistic.
Cancer
Self
Temptation
Part Of The Function Of Memory Is To Forget; The Omni-retentive Mind Will Break Down And Produce At Best An Idiot Savant Who Can Recite A Telephone Book, And At Worst A Person To Whom Every Grudge And Slight Is As Yesterday's.
Memories
Book
Yesterday
It's Impossible, I Think, However Much I'd Become Disillusioned Politically Or Evolve Into A Post-political Person, I Don't Think I'd Ever Change My View That Socialism Is The Best Political Moment Humans Have Ever Come Up With.
Thinking
Views
Political
What Word Or Expression Do You Most Overuse? Re-reading A Collection Of My Stuff, I Was Rather Startled To Find That It Was 'perhaps.
Reading
Expression
Stuff
All The Time, I've Felt That Life Is A Wager And That I Probably Was Getting More Out Of Leading A Bohemian Existence As A Writer Than I Would Have If I Didn't.
Wagers
Life Is
Bohemian
An Individual Deficient In The Sense Of Humor Represents More Of A Challenge To Our Idea Of The Human Than A Person Of Subnormal Intelligence
Ideas
Challenges
Sense Of Humor
Arguments That Explain Everything... Explain Nothing
Argument
The God Of Moses Would Call For Other Tribes, Including His Favorite One, To Suffer Massacre And Plague And Even Extirpation, But When The Grave Closed Over His Victims He Was Essentially Finished With Them Unless He Remembered To Curse Their Succeeding Progeny. Not Until The Advent Of The Prince Of Peace Do We Hear Of The Ghastly Idea Of Further Punishing And Torturing The Dead.
Ideas
Suffering
Prince Of Peace
Those Who Want To Be Offended Don't Have The Right To Try And Close Down The Newspaper That Offends Them.
Trying
Want
Newspapers
The Obsession With Gold, Actually And Politically, Occurs Among Those Who Regard Economics As A Branch Of Morality. Gold Is Solid, Gold Is Durable, Gold Is Rare, Gold Is Even (in Certain Very Peculiar Circumstances) Convertible. To Believe In Thrift, Solidity And Soundness Is To Believe In Some Way In The Properties Of Gold.
Money
Believe
Gold
We Have Preachers And Savants Who Dilate Endlessly On The Sanctity Of Family And Childhood But Who Tolerate A System In Which A Casual Observer Can Correlate A Child's Social Origin With Its Physical Well-being.
Children
Childhood
Social
Morality Comes From Humanism And Is Stolen By Religion For Its Own Purposes.
Purpose
Morality
Stolen
Religion Has Been An Enormous Multiplier Of Tribal Suspicion And Hatred.
Hatred
Enormous
Suspicion
Every Campaign, Garry Wills Once Wrote, "taught Nixon The Same Lesson: Mobilize Resentment Against Those In Power." History Taught The Same To Many Conservative And Reactionary Populist Movements, Whose Real Attitude To Those In Power And Authority Was One Of A Servile, Envious, Vicarious Adoration.
Attitude
Real
Campaigns
This Walking Business Is Overrated: I Mastered The Art Of Doing It When I Was Quite Small, And In Any Case, What Are Taxis For?
Art
Cases
Taxi
[e]xceptional Claims Demand Exceptional Evidence.
Inspirational
Motivational
Atheist
The Brilliant Schiller Was Wrong In His Joan Of Arc When He Said Against Stupidity The Gods Themselves Contend In Vain. It Is Actually By Means Of The Gods That We Make Our Stupidity And Gullibility Into Something Ineffable.
Mean
Stupidity
Brilliant
I Felt Clinton Represented The Worst Of The 1960s.
Clinton
Worst
1960s
We Inherited These Principles And These Freedoms And We Here Highly Resolve That We Shall Pass Them On, As We Will Pass On An Undivided Republic Purged Of Racism And Slavery, To Our Descendants. The Popgun Discharges Of A Few Pathetic Sectarians And Crackpot Revisionists Are Negligible, And Will Be Drowned By The Mounting Chorus That Demands: 'mr Jefferson! Build Up That Wall'.
Atheist
Wall
Racism
Flaubert Was Right When He Said That Our Use Of Language Is Like A Cracked Kettle On Which We Bang Out Tunes For Bears To Dance To, While All The Time We Need To Move The Very Stars To Pity.
Stars
Moving
Bangs
Ever Since I Discovered That My God Given Male Member Was Going To Give Me No Peace, I Decided To Give It No Rest In Return.
Giving
Males
Return
I Think Religion Should Be Treated With Ridicule, Hatred And Contempt, And I Claim That Right.
Thinking
Hatred
Claims
One Of The Reasons I Decided To Apply For American Citizenship After Something Like A Quarter Of Century Of Living Here On A British, European Union Passport And A Green Card, Was My Identification With The United States In The Post-september 11th Period.
United States
Cards
Unions
In Our Time, The Symbol Of State Intrusion Into The Private Life Is The Mandatory Urine Test.
Tests
Life Is
Intrusion
Those Of Us Who Write And Study History Are Accustomed To Its Approximations And Ambiguities. This Is Why We Do Not Take Literally The Tenth-hand Reports Of Frightened And Illiterate Peasants Who Claim To Have Seen Miracles Or To Have Had Encounters With Messiahs And Prophets And Redeemers Who Were, Like Them, Mere Humans. And This Is Also Why We Will Never Submit To Dictation From Those Who Display A Fanatical Belief In Certainty And Revelation.
Atheist
Writing
Hands
The One Thing That The Racist Can Never Manage Is Anything Like Discrimination: He Is Indiscriminate By Definition.
Racist
Definitions
Discrimination
The Quality You Most Admire In A Woman? Courage Moral And Physical: "anima"-the Ability To Visualize The Mind And Need Of A Man. Also A Sense Of The Absurd.
Men
Empathy
Mind
My Father Had Died, And Very Swiftly, Too, Of Cancer Of The Esophagus. He Was 79. I Am 61. In Whatever Kind Of A 'race' Life May Be, I Have Very Abruptly Become A Finalist.
Cancer
Father
Race
The Worst Days Are When You Feel Foggy In The Head - Chemo-brain They Call It. It's Awful Because You Feel Boring. As Well As Bored. And Stupid. And Resigned.
Stupid
Bored
Brain
A Good Liar Must Have A Good Memory. Kissinger Is A Stupendous Liar With A Remarkable Memory.
Memories
Liars
Remarkable
Suddenly That It Was As Dangerous To Be In America As It Was To Be Overseas. So That The False Distinction That's Made By The Anti-war Movement Between Being Over There And Over Here Was Exposed For All To See As An Illusion. Although A Number Of People, A Large Amount Of People Still Share In It. In Other Words, When I've Been In Iraq Or Afghanistan, I've Probably Been Safer Because I Can Carry A Weapon If I Have To, Than My Wife And Daughter Are Living In Washington.
Daughter
War
Iraq
Religion Attacks Us In Our Deepest Integrity By Saying We Wouldn't Be Able To Make A Moral Decision Without It.
Integrity
Decision
Able
The Noble Title Of "dissident" Must Be Earned Rather Than Claimed; It Connotes Sacrifice And Risk Rather Than Mere Disagreement.
Sacrifice
Risk
Titles
Bertrand Russell Used To Employ The Method Of "evidence Against Interest"; In Other Words Of Deciding That A Critique Of Capital Punishment, Say, Carried More Weight If It Came From A Prison Governor. (my Friend John O'sullivan Puts It Like This: If The Pope Says He Believes In God, He's Only Doing His Job; If He Says He Doesn't Believe In God, He May Be On To Something.)
Jobs
Believe
Punishment
In The Ordinary Moral Universe, The Good Will Do The Best They Can, The Worst Will Do The Worst They Can, But If You Want To Make Good People Do Wicked Things, You’ll Need Religion.
People
Religion
Wicked
I Suppose That One Reason I Have Always Detested Religion Is Its Sly Tendency To Insinuate The Idea That The Universe Is Designed With 'you' In Mind Or, Even Worse, That There Is A Divine Plan Into Which One Fits Whether One Knows It Or Not. This Kind Of Modesty Is Too Arrogant For Me.
Atheist
Ideas
Mind
Along With Islam And Christianity, Judaism Does Insist That Some Turgid And Contradictory And Sometimes Evil And Mad Texts, Obviously Written By Fairly Unexceptional Humans, Are In Fact The Word Of God. I Think That The Indispensable Condition Of Any Intellectual Liberty Is The Realisation That There Is No Such Thing.
Thinking
Evil
Mad
To Be In Opposition Is Not To Be A Nihilist.
Nihilist
Opposition
There Either Is A God Or There Is Not; There Is A 'design' Or Not.
Atheist
Design
It's Surprising To Me How Many Of My Friends Send Christmas Cards, Or Holiday Cards, Including My Atheist And Secular Friends.
Christmas
Atheist
Holiday
The Atheist Proposition Is The Following - Most Of The Time - It May Not Be Said That There Is No God; It May Be Said That There Is No Reason To Think That There Is One.
Atheist
Thinking
May
I'm Dying, But So Are You
Inspirational
Dying
No Society Has Gone The Way Of Gulags Or Concentration Camps By Following The Path Of Spinoza And Einstein And Jefferson And Thomas Paine
Gone
Way
Gulags
I Didn't Think Marilyn Monroe Was Beautiful. It Used To Worry Me. I Thought Maybe I'm Not Put Together Like The Other Chaps.
Beautiful
Thinking
Worry
American Author Mark Twain, While Viewed As Liberal And Non-judgmental, Did At Times Demonstrate Both These Characteristics. While His Reasons For Detesting The Christian Faith Are Unclear, They Seem To Have Been Profound And Deep-rooted. Having Lambasted The Founder Of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, In A Later Quote He Referred To The Book Of Mormon As "chloroform In Print."
Christian
Book
Profound
It [obama's Nobel Peace Prize] Would Be Like Giving Someone An Oscar In The Hope That It Would Encourage Them To Make A Decent Motion Picture.
Giving
Would Be
Oscars
Religion Is Not The Belief There Is A God. Religion Is The Belief God Tells You What To Do.
Belief
If God Really Wanted People To Be Free Of [wicked Thoughts], He Should Have Taken More Care To Invent A Different Species.
Taken
Should Have
People
The Thing About Religion Is That It's The First And The Worst. The Worst Because It's The First.
Firsts
Worst
You Can Be A Polish American, Or An Arab American, Or A Greek American But You Can't Be English American. Why Not?
Greek
Why Not
Polish
(howard) Dean Is A Raving Nut Bag...a Raving, Sinister, Demagogic Nutbag...i And A Few Other People Saw That He Should Be Destroyed.
Nuts
People
Bags
Knowing That We Are Primates, I Think, Is A Fascinating Discovery, And A Very Interesting And Rather Cheering One.
Cheer
Thinking
Discovery
What Do You Most Value In Your Friends? Their Continued Existence.
Inspiring
Friends
Existence
I Am A Person Of Faith: I Am A Person Who Will Believe Practically Anything On No Evidence At All.
Believe
Evidence
Persons
Friends Call Me Hitch. Maybe It Can Be Turned Into A 900-phone Number. People Would Pay To Talk To Me.
Phones
Numbers
People
I Have Often Thought That When I Do Die It Will Be Of Sheer Boredom.
Boredom
Dies
Sheer
It Is Only Those Who Hope To Transform Human Beings Who End Up By Burning Them, Like The Waste Product Of A Failed Experiment.
Burning
Waste
Ends
I Burned The Candle At Both Ends And It Often Gave A Lovely Light.
Light
Lovely
Ends
Not Since North Korean Media Declared Kim Jong-il To Be The Reincarnation Of Kim Il Sung Has There Been Such A Blatant Attempt To Create A Necrocracy, Or Perhaps Mausolocracy, In Which A Living Claimant Assumes The Fleshly Mantle Of The Departed.
Media
Departed
Kim Il Sung
Which Natural Gift Would You Most Like To Possess? The Ability To Master Other Languages (which Would Have Hugely Enhanced The Scope Of These Answers). How Would You Like To Die? Fully Conscious, And Either Fighting Or Reciting (or Fooling Around). What Do You Most Dislike About Your Appearance? The Way In Which It Makes Former Admirers Search For Neutral Words.
Fighting
Answers
Way
That Most Risky And Volatile Of All Things A Self-pitying Majority.
Self
Majority
All Things
As Well As Being A Vulgar Producer Of Her Own Spectacle, And An Embarrassment To Her Family, Cindy Sheehan Is At Best A Shifty Fantasist.
Embarrassment
Producers
Vulgar
Haven't We All Heard Some Irritating Person Saying That If So-and-so Is Elected, Then He/she Is Absolutely Definitely Leaving The Country? There Must Be Some Reason Why It Is Mainly Liberals Who Tend To Say This, But The Chief Thing To Note About The Promise Is That It Is Usually An Empty One.
Country
Leaving
Promise
What If I Pulled Through And The Pious Faction Contentedly Claimed That Their Prayers Had Been Answered? That Would Somehow Be Irritating.
Prayer
What If
Factions
I Don't Regard Myself As Any Kind Of Conservative, Except Conceivably Neo, And That Word, Of Course, Is A Ridiculous Appellation, Because It's Used To Describe A Group That Was Ready To Make War On The Status Quo, Which Is Not A Conservative Position.
War
Groups
Ridiculous
Literature, Not Scripture, Sustains The Mind And - Since There Is No Other Metaphor - Also The Soul.
Soul
Mind
Literature
I'm Terrified Of Losing My Voice.
Voice
Losing
Terrified
Everything About Christianity Is Contained In The Pathetic Image Of 'the Flock.
Atheist
Atheism
Christianity
The Governor Of Texas, Who, When Asked If The Bible Should Also Be Taught In Spanish, Replied That 'if English Was Good Enough For Jesus, Then It's Good Enough For Me.
Jesus
Texas
Taught
And The Pleasures And Rewards Of The Intellect Are Inseparable From Angst, Uncertainty, Conflict And Even Despair.
Despair
Rewards
Conflict
And Yet, I Wake Up Every Day To A Sensation Of Pervading Disgust And Annoyance. I Probably Ought To Carry Around Some Kind Of Thermometer Or Other Instrument, To Keep Checking That I Am Not Falling Prey To Premature Curmudgeonhood.
Fall
Wake Up
Kind
A Bit Of A Stomach Give A Chap A Position In Society.
Giving
Stomach
Chaps
What Is It You Most Dislike? Stupidity, Especially In Its Nastiest Forms Of Racism And Superstition.
Atheist
Stupid
Racism
Ronald Reagan Said That He Sought A "star Wars" Defense Only In Order To Share The Technology With The Tyrants Of The U.s.s.r.
Stars
War
Technology
If You Can Charm Everyone It Means You Don't Care About Anyone In Particular.
Mean
Care
Charm
In The Early Days Of The December That My Father Was To Die, My Younger Brother Brought Me The News That I Was A Jew. I Was Then A Transplanted Englishman In America, Married, With One Son And, Though Unconsoled By Any Religion, A Nonbelieving Member Of Two Christian Churches. On Hearing The Tidings, I Was Pleased To Find That I Was Pleased.
Christian
Brother
Atheist
Of Course We Have Free Will Because We Have No Choice But To Have It.
Choices
Free Will
Courses
There Are Things About Quitting The Smoking Habit For Which Nobody Prepares You. Did I Have Any Idea That I Would Indulge In Long, Drooling-nay, Dribbling-lascivious Dreams In Which I Was Still Wreathed In Fragrant Blue Fumes? I Would Wake With The Complete And Guilty Conviction That I Had Sinned In Word And Deed While I Was Asleep.
Dream
Blue
Ideas
I Could Not Possibly Improve On The Sentiment, But I Don't Think It Ought To Depend On The Current Austerities. Isn't Christmas A Moral And Aesthetic Nightmare Whether Or Not The Days Are Prosperous?
Christmas
Thinking
Austerity
[i]f You Think That American Imperialism And Its Globalised, Capitalist Form Is The Most Dangerous Thing In The World, That Means You Don't Think The Islamic Republic Of Iran Or North Korea Or The Taliban Is As Bad.
Islamic
Mean
Thinking
I'm An Atheist. I'm Not Neutral About Religion, I'm Hostile To It. I Think It Is A Positively Bad Idea, Not Just A False One. And I Mean Not Just Organized Religion, But Religious Belief Itself.
Religious
Atheist
Mean
Endless Praise And Adoration, Limitless Abnegation And Abjection Of Self; A Celestial North Korea.
Self
Korea
Abjection
I Wrote A Piece From North Korea Called Visit To A Small Planet Which Is A Line I Stole From A Play Of Gore Vidal's, Because It Did Seem To Me As If I Had Left This Planet Completely To Go On This Visit To The Northern Part Of The Korean Peninsula, And It Was As If Coming Back From Another Spatial Body Altogether.
Korea
Play
Pieces
Jesus Makes Large Claims For His Heavenly Father But Never Mentions That His Mother Is Or Was A Virgin, And Is Repeatedly Very Rude And Coarse To Her When She Makes An Appearance.
Mother
Jesus
Father
Time Spent Arguing With The Faithful Is, Oddly Enough, Almost Never Wasted.
Time
Faithful
Arguing
How Ya Doin'?' I Always Think, What Kind Of A Question Is That?, And I Always Reply, 'a Bit Early To Tell.
Thinking
Kind
Bits
It Must Be Obvious To Anyone Who Can Think At All That The Charges Against The Hussein Regime Are, As Concerns Arsenals Of Genocidal Weaponry, True.
Thinking
Hussein
Regimes
I Have Tried For Much Of My Life To Write As If I Was Composing My Sentences To Be Read Posthumously.
Writing
Composing
Sentences
My Children, To The Extent That They Have Found Religion, Have Found It From Me, In That I Insist On At Least A Modicum Of Religious Education For Them.
Religious
Children
Found
Religion, It Is True, Still Possesses The Huge If Cumbersome And Unwieldy Advantage Of Having Come First.
Religion
Firsts
Advantage
In Order To Be A Part Of The Totalitarian Mind-set, It Is Not Necessary To Wear A Uniform Or Carry A Club Or A Whip. It Is Only Necessary To Wish For Your Own Subjection, And To Delight In The Subjection Of Others.
Order
Mind
Wish
Many Of The Points Made By The Antiwar Movement Have Been Consciously Assimilated By The Pentagon And Its Lawyers And Advisers. Precision Weaponry Is Good In Itself, But Its Ability To Discriminate Is Improving And Will Continue To Improve. Cluster Bombs Are Perhaps Not Good In Themselves, But When They Are Dropped On Identifiable Concentrations Of Taliban Troops, They Do Have A Heartening Effect.
Troops
Bombs
Movement
It's Often A Bad Sign When People Defend Themselves Against Charges Which Haven't Been Made.
People
Made
Havens
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