I Must Have Been One Of The Least Surprised People On Earth On September 11. I Felt Very Braced For That. I Knew Something Like That Was Going To Come.

-Christopher Hitchens

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I Must Have Been

Christopher Hitchens

I Must Have Been One Of The Least Surprised People On Earth On September 11. I Felt Very Braced For That. I Knew Something Like That Was Going To Come.

Topic

People

September 11

Earth

More From Christopher Hitchens

The Thing About Religion Is That It's The First And The Worst. The Worst Because It's The First.

Firsts

Worst

The Teachings Of Christianity - From Vicarious Redemption To The Love Of Enemies, No Thought For The Morrow Need Be Taken, That No Thrift Or Care Or Family Or Society Or Solidarity Is Necessary - These Are Immoral Teachings That Have Done And Continue To Inflict Untold Moral And Physical Harm On Our Species. And Until We Outgrow This Nonsense, We Have No Chance Of Emancipating Ourselves.

Teaching

Taken

Enemy

If Religious Instruction Were Not Allowed Until The Child Had Attained The Age Of Reason, We Would Be Living In A Quite Different World.

Religious

Children

Religion

The Iranian People Were Converted To Islam Not Very Much Longer After The Conquest Of The Arab World By Islam, But They Refused To Adopt The Arabic Language, And It's A Great Point Of Pride To Them That Persian Culture And The Persian Language And Persian Literature Survived The Conversion To Islam. And The Conversion To Islam Also Was For Most Of Them Not The Sunni Majority Form, But The Shia One. So There's A Great Discrepancy Between Iranian Society And Many Other Of What We Think Of As Arab Muslim States And Systems.

Pride

Thinking

Discrepancies Between

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

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.

Stupidity

Measurement

Given

Forget It. Never Explain; Never Apologize. You Can Either Write Posthumously Or You Can't.

Writing

Apologizing

Forget

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

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

Jobs

Ocean

Only The Aspirants For President Are Fool Enough To Believe What They Read In The Newspapers.

Believe

President

Fool

A Melancholy Lesson Of Advancing Years Is The Realisation That You Can't Make Old Friends.

Years

Old Friends

Lessons

Our Belief Is Not A Belief. Our Principles Are Not A Faith. We Do Not Rely Soley Upon Science And Reason, Because These Are Necessary Rather Than Sufficient Factors, But We Distrust Anything That Contradicts Science Or Outrages Reason. We May Differ On Many Things, But What We Respect Is Free Inquiry, Openmindedness, And The Pursuit Of Ideas For Their Own Sake.

Atheist

Science

Ideas

Your Favorite Virtue? An Appreciation For Irony.

Appreciation

Irony

Virtue

It's Probably A Merciful Thing That Pain Is Impossible To Describe From Memory

Pain

Memories

Impossible

I Have Often Thought That When I Do Die It Will Be Of Sheer Boredom.

Boredom

Dies

Sheer

The Essence Of The Independent Mind Lies Not In What It Thinks, But In How It Thinks.

Lying

Independent

Thinking

For The People Who Ostensibly Wish Me Well Or Are Worried About My Immortal Soul, I Say I Take It Kindly.

People

Soul

Wish

If You Gave [jerry] Falwell An Enema He Could Be Buried In A Matchbox.

Atheist

Religion

Buried

It's Considered Acceptable In Our Culture To Approach Perfect Strangers, As Often Or Not Who May Be In Extremis, And Evangelise. I Don't See Why That's Considered A Normal Thing.

Perfect

May

Normal

I Was Brought Up In A Very Naval, Military, And Conservative Background. My Father And His Friends Had Very Typical Opinions Of The British Middle Class - Lower-middle Class Actually - After The War. My Father Broke Into The Middle Class By Joining The Navy. I Was The First Member Of My Family Ever To Go To Private School Or Even To University. So, The Armed Forces Had Been Upward Mobility For Him.

Military

War

Father

It Ought To Be An Offense To Be Excruciating And Unfunny In Circumstances Where Your Audience Is Almost Morally Obliged To Enthuse.

Cancer

Circumstances

Offense

Those Who Are Determined To Be 'offended' Will Discover A Provocation Somewhere. We Cannot Possibly Adjust Enough To Please The Fanatics, And It Is Degrading To Make The Attempt.

Determined

Enough

Please

My Favorite Time In The Cycles Of Public Life Is The Time When The Pope Is Dead And They Haven't Elected A New One. There's No One In The World Who Is Infallible For Those Weeks. And You Know, I Don't Miss It.

Missing

World

Life Is

Hannah Arendt In Her Study Of Totalitarianism Borrowed From Immanuel Kant The Concept Of Radical Evil, Of Evil That's So Evil That In The End It Destroys Itself, It's So Committed To Evil And It's So Committed To Hatred And Cruelty That It Becomes Suicidal. My Definition Of It Is The Surplus Value That's Generated By Totalitarianism. It Means You Do More Violence, More Cruelty Than You Absolutely Have To To Stay In Power.

Suicidal

Mean

Evil

I Personally Want To "do" Death In The Active And Not The Passive, And To Be There To Look It In The Eye And Be Doing Something When It Comes For Me.

Death

Eye

Looks

Will An Iraq War Make Our Al Qaeda Problem Worse? Not Likely.

War

Iraq

Als

The Totalitarian, To Me, Is The Enemy - The One That's Absolute, The One That Wants Control Over The Inside Of Your Head, Not Just Your Actions And Your Taxes.

Enemy

Want

Action

Our Weapons Are The Ironic Mind Against The Literal: The Open Mind Against The Credulous; The Courageous Pursuit Of Truth Against The Fearful And Abject Forces Who Would Set Limits To Investigation (and Who Stupidly Claim That We Already Have All The Truth We Need). Perhaps Above All, We Affirm Life Over The Cults Of Death And Human Sacrifice And Are Afraid, Not Of Inevitable Death, But Rather Of A Human Life That Is Cramped And Distorted By The Pathetic Need To Offer Mindless Adulation, Or The Dismal Belief That The Laws Of Nature Respond To Wailings And Incantations.

Atheist

Sacrifice

Law

Religion Is Part Of The Human Make-up. It's Also Part Of Our Cultural And Intellectual History. Religion Was Our First Attempt At Literature, The Texts, Our First Attempt At Cosmology, Making Sense Of Where We Are In The Universe, Our First Attempt At Health Care, Believing In Faith Healing, Our First Attempt At Philosophy.

Philosophy

Believe

Healing

In Our Native Terms, The Ironic Style Is Often Compounded With The Sardonic And The Hard-boiled; Even The Effortlessly Superior. But Irony Originates In The Glance And The Shrug Of The Loser, The Outsider, The Despised Minority. It Is A Nuance That Comes Most Effortlessly To The Oppressed.

Sunset

Ironic

Style

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

The Concept Of Loneliness And Exile And Self-sufficiency Continually Bucks Me Up.

Loneliness

Self

Bucks

When Maimonides Says That The Messiah Will Come But That 'he May Tarry,' We See The Origin Of Every Jewish Shrug From Spinoza To Woody Allen.

May

Spinoza

Woody

It's Called Faith Because It's Not Knowledge.

We Know How To Think. We Know How To Laugh. We Know We're Going To Die, Which Gives Us A Lot To Think About, And We Have A Need For, What I Would Call, "the Transcendent" Or "the Numinous" Or Even "the Ecstatic" That Comes Out In Love And Music, Poetry, And Landscape. I Wouldn't Trust Anyone Who Didn't Respond To Things Of That Sort.

Thinking

Giving

Laughing

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

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

I Think I Write In A Fairly Self-confident Manner.

Writing

Thinking

Self

Did We Not Aid The Grisly Taliban To Achieve And Hold Power? Yes Indeed 'we' Did. Well, Does That Not Double Or Triple Our Responsibility To Remove Them From Power?

Responsibility

Doe

Achieve

Here’s Someone Who Says There’s No Such Thing, It’s All Intelligent Design. How Sure Am I Of My Own Views? Don’t Take Refuge In The False Security Of Consensus, And The Feeling That Whatever You Think You’re Bound To Be Okay, Because You’re In The Safely Moral Majority.

Refuge

Consensus

Security

It Is A Horrible Idea That There Is Somebody Who Owns Us, Who Makes Us, Who Supervises Us - Waking And Sleeping - Who Knows Our Thoughts, Who Can Convict Us Of Thought Crime, Thought Crime, Just For What We Think, Who Can Judge Us While We Sleep For Things That Might Occur To Us In Our Dreams, Who Can Create Us Sick, As Apparently We Are - And Then Order Us, On Pain Of Eternal Torture To Be Well Again. To Demand This, To Wish This To Be True Is To Wish To Live As An Abject Slave.

Dream

Pain

Sleep

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

I Could Not Do What I Do, And Teach A Class, And Never Miss A Deadline, Never Be Late For Anything If I Was A Lush, Ok? I Would Really Love To Read A Piece That Said, 'he Is Not A Lush.' That Would Be Fabulous, It Would Be A First, I Could Show It To People And Say, 'look!'

Class

People

Missing

Exceptional Claims, Require Exceptional Evidence.

Claims

Evidence

Exceptional

If You Can Charm Everyone It Means You Don't Care About Anyone In Particular.

Mean

Care

Charm

Religion Looks Forward To The Destruction Of The World.... Perhaps Half Aware That Its Unsupported Arguments Are Not Entirely Persuasive, And Perhaps Uneasy About Its Own Greedy Accumulation Of Temporal Power And Wealth, Religion Has Never Ceased To Proclaim The Apocalypse And The Day Of Judgment.

Looks

Half

World

If Anything Qualifies As An Irony Of History It Would Be This: That Marx And Engels Throughout The Nineteenth Century Wrote About America The United States As The Great Country Of The Future, Of Freedom And Equality And A Good Life For The Working Man, And A Country Of Revolution And Emancipation, And Of Russia As The Great Country Of Despotism, Backwardness, Savagery And Superstition.

Country

Good Life

Men

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

People

Decision

Allow A Friend To Believe In A Bogus Prospectus Or A False Promise And You Cease, After A Short While, To Be A Friend At All.

Believe

Promise

Cease

Nothing Could Make Me Forget What The Reagan Years Had Actually Been Like.

Years

Forget

The Stupider The Regime The More Intelligent The People Get And The More Humorous.

Humorous

Intelligent

People

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

Islam

The Press Is Still Investing Itself, It Seems To Me, In A Sort Of Cynicism. It Comes Out Better For Them If They Can Predict Hard Times, Bogging Down, Sniping, Attrition.

Hard Times

Sniping

Investing

Martin Is Your Best Friend, Isn't He?' A Sweet And Well-intentioned Girl Once Said When Both Of Us Were Present: It Was The Only Time I Ever Felt Awkward About This Precious Idea, Which Seemed Somehow To Risk Diminishment If It Were Uttered Aloud.

Best Friend

Girl

Sweet

With Modern American Dentistry It Is Simply Amazing To See What Transformation Can Be Wrought In A Single Day.

Transformation

Modern

Dentistry

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

Talking, It Seemed To Me, Was The Point Of Adult Existence.

Talking

Adults

Existence

The Reading Public Isn't Born That Doesn't Think Foreigners Are Either Funny Or Faintly Sinister.

Reading

Thinking

Born

I Have Been Called Arrogant Myself In My Time, And Hope To Earn The Title Again, But To Claim That I Am Privy To The Secrets Of The Universe And Its Creator - That's Beyond My Conceit.

Atheist

Pride

Secret

A Good Liar Must Have A Good Memory.

Memories

Liars

Good Memories

If You Say "the Economy," You Show You're Stupid. There's No Such Thing As The Economy. There Is Not A Unity Between The Forces Of Production And The Relations Of Production.

Stupid

Unity

Economy

My Dear Wife Has, I Would Say, Probably Never Opened A Religious Book, And Seems To Be One Of Those People To Whom The Whole Idea Is Utterly Remote And Absurd.

Religious

Book

Ideas

I Say That Homosexuality Is Not Just A Form Of Sex, It's A Form Of Love, And It Deserves Our Respect For That Reason.

Sex

Lgbt

Gay Pride

I Don’t Have A Body, I Am A Body.

Body

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

We Have Lived In A World Where The Discoveries Of Physics And Genetics Are Far More Awe-inspiring, As Well As Infinitely More Liberating, Than The Claims Of Any Religion.

Discovery

World

Physics

In Our Time, The Symbol Of State Intrusion Into The Private Life Is The Mandatory Urine Test.

Tests

Life Is

Intrusion

I Think The Materialist Conception Of History Is Valid.

Thinking

Conception

I Make Preparations Both To Live And To Die Every Day, But With The Emphasis On Not Dying, And On Acting As If I Was Going To Carry On Living.

Preparation

Dying

Acting

Never Be A Spectator Of Unfairness Or Stupidity. Seek Out Argument And Disputation For Their Own Sake; The Grave Will Supply Plenty Of Time For Silence.

Atheist

Silence

Stupidity

That Most Risky And Volatile Of All Things A Self-pitying Majority.

Self

Majority

All Things

A Faction Willing To Take The Risks Of Making War On The Ossified Status Quo In The Middle East Can Be Described As Many Things, But Not As Conservative.

War

Risk

East

When You Consider How Many Millions Of Workdays Begin With Hangovers Great And Small, It Is Mildly surprising To Find How Few Real Descriptions Of The Experience Our Literature Can Boast.

Real

Hangover

Literature

The Disquieting Thing About Newscaster-babble Or Editorial-speak Is Its Ready Availability As A Serf Idiom, A Vernacular Of Deference. "mr. Secretary, Are We Any Nearer To Bringing About A Dialogue In This Process ?

Availability

Speak

Process

If I Convert It's Because It's Better That A Believer Dies Than That An Atheist Does.

Atheist

Atheism

Doe

I Think Religion Should Be Treated With Ridicule, Hatred And Contempt, And I Claim That Right.

Thinking

Hatred

Claims

[concerning Monotheistic Religions] The Only Thing These Hysterical Cults Have In Common Is The Belief That This World Will Be Consumed, And Deservedly So, When The Moment Is Ripe. They Also, All Of Them, Profess A Great Disdain For Earthly Possessions. Yet They Pass The Intervening Time In Haggling Over The Most Trivial And Paltry Property Rights, Over Caves And Rocks And Disputable Pieces Of Archeological Rubbish.

Rights

Rocks

Caves

Its A Matter Of Principle. If Jews Born In Brooklyn Have A Right To A State In Palestine Then Palestinians Born In Jerusalem Have A Right To A State In Palestine.

Principles

Brooklyn

Jerusalem

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

Teasing Is Very Often A Sign Of Inner Misery.

Misery

Tease

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

Gone

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

Don't Swallow Your Moral Code In Tablet Form.

Tablets

Moral

Form

There Either Is A God Or There Is Not; There Is A 'design' Or Not.

Atheist

Design

Well, I'll Put It This Way: You Can Certainly Say Belief In God Makes People Behave Worse. That Can Be Proved Beyond A Doubt.

People

Doubt

Way

Religion Is Man-made. Even The Men Who Made It Cannot Agree On What Their Prophets Or Redeemers Or Gurus Actually Said Or Did.

Men

He Man

Guru

Terrorism Is The Tactic Of Demanding The Impossible, And Demanding It At Gunpoint.

Tactics

Impossible

Terrorism

It's Normally Agreed That The Question 'how Are You?' Doesn't Put You On Your Oath To Give A Full Or Honest Answer.

Giving

Answers

Honest

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

If I'm In A Political Argument, I Think I Can, With Reasonable Accuracy And Without Boasting, Put The Other Person's Side Of The Case At Least As Well As They Could. One Has To Be Able To Say That In Any Well-conducted Argument.

Thinking

Political

Able

Some People Say That Without God, People Would Give Themselves Permission To Do Anything. [yet] Only With God, Only With The View That God's On Your Side, Can People Give Themselves Permission To Do Things That Otherwise Would Be Called Satanic.

Views

Your Side

People

We Have Known For A Long Time That Prince Charles' Empty Sails Are So Rigged As To Be Swelled By Any Passing Waft Or Breeze Of Crankiness And Cant. He Fell For The Fake Anthropologist Laurens Van Der Post. He Was Bowled Over By The Charms Of Homeopathic Medicine. He Has Been Believably Reported As Saying That Plants Do Better If You Talk To Them In A Soothing And Encouraging Way

Stupid

Medicine

Long

We Are Unlikely To Cease Making Gods Or Inventing Ceremonies To Please Them For As Long As We Are Afraid Of Death, Or Of The Dark, And For As Long As We persist In Self-centeredness. That Could Be A Lengthy Stretch Of Time.

Dark

Self

Long

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 Have Decided To Take Whatever My Disease Can Throw At Me.

Disease

Decided

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

It's [los Angeles] Mostly Full Of Nonsense And Delusion And Egomania. They Think They'll Be Young And Beautiful Forever, Even Though Most Of Them Aren't Even Young And Beautiful Now.

Beautiful

Thinking

Forever

In Some Ways I Feel Sorry For Racists And For Religious Fanatics, Because They So Much Miss The Point Of Being Human, And Deserve A Sort Of Pity. But Then I Harden My Heart, And Decide To Hate Them All The More, Because Of The Misery They Inflict And Because Of The Contemptible Excuses They Advance For Doing So.

Religious

Sorry

Hate

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.

Winning

Forever

Battle

Intellectuals Never Sound More Foolish Than When Posing As The Last Civilised Man.

Men

Sound

Lasts

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

No Moral Person Would Do Such A Thing Unless They Thought It Was Divinely Warranted.

Religion

Moral

Persons

I Sympathize Afresh With The Mighty Voltaire Who, When Badgered On His Deathbed And Urged To Renounce The Devil, Murmured That This Was No Time To Be Making Enemies.

Enemy

Devil

Renounce

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

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

Beware The Irrational, However Seductive. Shun The 'transcendent' And All Who Invite You To Subordinate Or Annihilate Yourself. Distrust Compassion; Prefer Dignity For Yourself And Others. Don't Be Afraid To Be Thought Arrogant Or Selfish. Picture All Experts As If They Were Mammals. Never Be A Spectator Of Unfairness Or Stupidity. Seek Out Argument And Disputation For Their Own Sake; The Grave Will Supply Plenty Of Time For Silence. Suspect Your Own Motives, And All Excuses. Do Not Live For Others Any More Than You Would Expect Others To Live For You.

Courage

Selfish

Science

Redemption Is Promised At The Low Price Of Surrender Of Your Critical Faculties.

Religion

Redemption

Surrender

Evolution Has Meant That Our Prefrontal Lobes Are Too Small, Our Adrenal Glands Are Too Big, And Our Reproductive Organs Apparently Designed By Committee; A Recipe Which, Alone Or In Combination, Is Very Certain To Lead To Some Unhappiness And Disorder.

Adrenal Glands

Recipes

Evolution

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!

Dying

Sanctions

Willing

It's Often A Bad Sign When People Defend Themselves Against Charges Which Haven't Been Made.

People

Made

Havens

Friends Call Me Hitch. Maybe It Can Be Turned Into A 900-phone Number. People Would Pay To Talk To Me.

Phones

Numbers

People

So Far, I Have Decided To Take Whatever My Disease Can Throw At Me, And To Stay Combative Even While Taking The Measure Of My Inevitable Decline. I Repeat, This Is No More Than What A Healthy Person Has To Do In Slower Motion.

Healthy

Disease

Decline

My Chief Consolation In This Year Of Living Dyingly Has Been The Presence Of Friends.

Years

Chiefs

Consolation

I Don't Say Things Like "the Grace Of God." All That's White Noise To Me, Not Because I'm An Intellectual. For Many People, It's Gibberish. Likewise, The Idea That The Koran Was Dictated By An Archaic Illiterate Is A Fantasy.

Ideas

White

People

Who Are Your Favourite Heroines In Real Life? The Women Of Afghanistan, Iraq, And Iran Who Risk Their Lives And Their Beauty To Defy The Foulness Of Theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali And Azar Nafisi As Their Ideal Feminine Model.

Real

Iran

Iraq

The Prostitute Journalist Is A Familiar And Well-understood Figure In The Middle East, And Saddam Hussein's Regime Made Lavish Use Of The Buyability Of The Regional Press. Now We, Too, Have Hired That Clapped-out Old Floozy, Miss Rosie Scenario, And Sent Her Whoring Through The Streets.

Missing

Middle East

Use

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.

Jesus

Punishment

Ideas

I'm Here As A Product Of Process Of Evolution, Which Doesn't Make Very Many Exceptions. And Which Rates Life Relatively Cheaply.

Evolution

Process

Rate

In One Way, Traveling Has Narrowed My Mind. What I Have Discovered Is Something Very Ordinary And Unexciting, Which Is That Humans Are The Same Everywhere And That The Degree Of Variation Between Members Of Our Species Is Very Slight. This Is Of Course An Encouraging Finding; It Helps Arm You Against News Programs Back Home That Show Seething Or Abject Masses Of Either Fanatical Or Torpid People. In Another Way It Is A Depressing Finding; The Sorts Of Things That Make People Quarrel And Make Them Stupid Are The Same Everywhere.

Depressing

Stupid

Home

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

I Was Precocious Enough To Watch The News And Read The Papers, And I Can Remember October 1956, The Simultaneous Crisis In Hungary And Suez, Very Well. And Getting A Sense That The World Was Dangerous, A Sense That The Game Was Up, That The Empire Was Over.

Games

Watches

News

One Of The Many Dreadful Aspects Of The Kennedy 'legacy' Is The Now-unbreakable Grip Of Celebrity Politics, Image-doctoring, Stage Management, And "torch-passing" Rhetoric In General.

History

Torches

Legacy

I Was Taught Very Early On That The State Can Be, And Is, A Liar And A Murderer.

Liars

Taught

States

The Moment Of Near Despair Is Quite Often The Moment That Precedes Courage.

Despair

Moments

No One Has The Right To Tell Me What To Do Because He Has A Divine Warrant.

Religion

Divine

Warrants

"bombing Afghanistan Back Into The Stone Age" Was Quite A Favourite Headline For Some Wobbly Liberals. The Slogan Does All The Work. But An Instant's Thought Shows That Afghanistan Is Being, If Anything, Bombed Out Of The Stone Age.

Age

Doe

Stones

I've Had Some Dark Nights Of The Soul, Of Course, But Giving In To Depression Would Be A Sellout, A Defeat.

Dark

Night

Giving

The Violence In The Bible Is Appalling.

Violence

No Child's Behind Left.

Children

Religion

Behinds

A Panel At A Beautiful Annual Literary Festival In Brazil, Held In The Almost Utopian Coastal Town Of Parati, Found Me Matched With Fernando Gabeira. This Comparison Reduced My Own Limited Charisma Value To Something Like Zero: Gabeira Has Excelled At Every Cultural Activity In Brazil.

Love

Beautiful

Zero

You Can't Have Occupation And Human Rights.

Rights

Occupation

Human Rights

Happiness Is Fleeting And Life Is Brief, But We Know That, Nonetheless, Life Can Be Savored And That Happiness, Even Of The Ecstatic Kind, Is Available To Us.

Fleeting

Kind

Life Is

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

All The Excitements Of A Prohibited Book Had Their Usual Effect, One Of Which, As Always, Is To Expose The Fact That The Censors Don't Know What They Are Talking About.

Book

Talking

Usual

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

Everybody Does Have A Book In Them, But In Most Cases That's Where It Should Stay.

Book

Writing

Doe

The (catholic) Church, As Far As I Know, Has Not Endorsed Any War As Just Since It Supported General Franco's Invasion Of Spain To Destroy The Spanish Republic With A Muslim Mercenary Army In The Thirties, On The Side Of Hitler.

War

Army

Catholic

It's A Better Tradition For People Who Think For Themselves And Who Don't Pray In Aid Of Any Supernatural Authority. That's What You Should Be Spending Your Life Is In Spreading And Deepening That Tradition.

Thinking

People

Praying

It's No Fun To Appreciate To The Full The Truth Of The Materialist Proposition That I Don't Have A Body, I Am A Body.

Fun

Appreciate

Body

Kissinger Projects A Strong Impression Of A Man At Home In The World And On Top Of His Brief. But There Are A Number Of Occasions When It Suits Him To Pose As A Sort Of Candide: Naive, And Ill-prepared For And Easily Unhorsed By Events. No Doubt This Pose Costs Him Something In Point Of Self-esteem. It Is A Pose, Furthermore, Which He Often Adopts At Precisely The Time When The Record Shows Him To Be Knowledgeable, And When Knowledge Or Foreknowledge Would Also Confront Him With Charges Of Responsibility Or Complicity.

Strong

Self Esteem

Responsibility

You Have To Choose Your Future Regrets.

Regret

Your Future

I Felt Clinton Represented The Worst Of The 1960s.

Clinton

Worst

1960s

I Had Become Too Accustomed To The Pseudo-left New Style, Whereby If Your Opponent Thought He Had Identified Your Lowest Possible Motive, He Was Quite Certain That He Had Isolated The Only Real One. This Vulgar Method, Which Is Now The Norm And The Standard In Much Non-left Journalism As Well, Is Designed To Have The Effect Of Making Any Noisy Moron Into A Master Analyst.

Real

Style

Opponents

A Great Voice Has Fallen Silent. A Great Heart Has Stopped.

Heart

Voice

Silent

When I Meet People Who Say - Which They Do All Of The Time - 'i Must Just Tell You, My Great Aunt Had Cancer Of The Elbow And The Doctors Gave Her 10 Seconds To Live, But Last I Heard She Was Climbing Mount Everest,' And So Forth, I Switch Off Quite Early.

Cancer

Aunt

Doctors

Why Do Humans Exist? A Major Part Of The Answer: Because Pikaia Gracilens Survived The Burgess Decimation.

Atheist

Science

Religion

A Sure Sign Of Ineptitude And Malice Is Manifested When One's Attacker Is Willing To Cover Himself With Mud In Order To Try And Make Some Of It Adhere To His Target.

Order

Trying

Target

I'm Very Happy By Myself - I'm Lucky In That Way - If I've Got Enough To Read And Something To Write About And A Bit Of Alcohol For Me To Add An Edge, Not To Dull It.

Writing

Alcohol

Lucky

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.

Real

Party

Thinking

The First Thing I Can Remember I Ever Wanted Was To Go To The United States. And For Reasons That Are As Conventional As You Can Imagine: I Wanted To Know If It Was Really True That It Was The Land Of Opportunity, Of Democracy, And Individual Liberty.

Opportunity

Land

Democracy

What I Used To Say To People, When I Was Much More Engagé Myself, Is That You Can't Be Apolitical. It Will Come And Get You. It's Not That You Shouldn't Be Neutral. It's That You Won't Be Able To Stay Neutral.

People

Able

Used

Heroism Breaks Its Heart, And Idealism Its Back, On The Intransigence Of The Credulous And The Mediocre, Manipulated By The Cynical And The Corrupt.

Hero

Heart

Isms

How Is The United States At Once The Most Conservative And Commercial And The Most Revolutionary Society On Earth?

United States

Earth

Conservative

When I Go To The Clinic Next And Sit With A Tube In My Arm And Watch The Poison Go In, I'm In An Attitude Of Abject Passivity. It Doesn't Feel Like Fighting At All; It Just Feels Like Submitting.

Attitude

Fighting

Poison

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

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

'wasp' Is The Only Ethnic Term That Is In Fact A Term Of Class, Apart From Redneck, Which Is Another Word For The Same Group But Who Are In The Lower Social Strata, So It's Inexplicably Tied Up With Social Standing And Culture And History In A Way That The Other Hyphenations Just Are Not.

Redneck

Class

Facts

I'm Not Even An Atheist So Much As I Am An Antitheist; I Not Only Maintain That All Religions Are Versions Of The Same Untruth, But I Hold That The Influence Of Churches, And The Effect Of Religious Belief, Is Positively Harmful.

Religious

Atheist

Atheism

Religion Is Poison Because It Asks Us To Give Up Our Most Precious Faculty, Which Is That Of Reason, And To Believe Things Without Evidence. It Then Asks Us To Respect This, Which It Calls Faith.

Giving Up

Believe

Religion

Nonintervention Does Not Mean That Nothing Happens. It Means That Something Else Happens.

Mean

Doe

Anti War

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

I, For One, Will Not Have [the Vietcong] Insulted By Any Comparison To The Forces Of Zarqawi, The Fedayeen Saddam, And The Criminal Underworld Now Arrayed Against Us. These Depraved Elements Are The Iraqi Khmer Rouge.

Criminals

Elements

Force

The Suicide-bombing Community Is Not Absolutely 100 Percent Religious, But It Is Pretty Nearly 100 Percent Religious.

Suicide

Religious

Community

I Love It When Muslims Go To War With Each Other, As I Do When The Christians Do, Because It Shows There's No Such Thing As The Christian World And The Islamic World. That's All Crap.

Christian

War

Islamic

I Have Tried For Much Of My Life To Write As If I Was Composing My Sentences To Be Read Posthumously.

Writing

Composing

Sentences

There Are People Who Cannot Forget, As Neither Do I, The Lesson Of The Years Of The Indochina War. Which Was, First, That The State Is Capable Of Being A Murderer. A Mass Murderer, And A Conspirator And A Liar.

War

Liars

Years

It Is Not That There Are No Certainties, It Is That It Is An Absolute Certainty That There Are No Certainties.

Absolute Certainty

Certainty

Absolutes

I Don't Think There's Any Need To Have Essays Advocating Selfishness Among Human Beings; I Don't Know What Your Impression Has Been, But Some Things Require No Further Reinforcement.

Thinking

Selfishness

Needs

[religion] Attacks Us In Our Deepest Integrity - The Core Of Our Self-respect. Religion Says That We Would Not Know Right From Wrong, We Would Not Know An Evil, Wicked Act From A Decent Human Act Without Divine Permission, Without Divine Authority Or Without, Even Worse, Either The Fear Of A Divine Punishment Or The Hope Of A Divine Reward. It Strips Us Of The Right To Make Our Own Determination, As All Humans Always Have, About What Is And What Is Not A Right Human Action.

Determination

Integrity

Self

To Describe This Film As Dishonest And Demagogic Would Almost Be To Promote Those Terms To The Level Of Respectability. To Describe This Film As A Piece Of Crap Would Be To Run The Risk Of A Discourse That Would Never Again Rise Above The Excremental. To Describe It As An Exercise In Facile Crowd-pleasing Would Be Too Obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 Is A Sinister Exercise In Moral Frivolity, Crudely Disguised As An Exercise In Seriousness.

Running

Exercise

Risk

Quite Interesting, North Korea Is As If It's An Entirely Secular Dictatorship. In North Korea You Might Think That Was The Case Since It Has An Officially Communistic Ideology, But It's Not, It's The Most Religious State It's Possible To Imagine. It's Actually Two People Who Have Been Fused Into One, Maybe This Is Reminding You Of Something, There's The Father And There's The Son. It's One Short Of A Trinity.

Religious

Father

Son

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

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

I'm A Single-issue Voter, To Get Straight To The Point. I'm Really Only Interested In The Candidate Who's Toughest And Least Apologetic When It Comes To The Confrontation With Islamic Jihadism.

Islamic

Issues

Voters

When The [us] President Writes To Kim Jong Il, The Son, The Dear Leader, He Doesn't Call Him Dear Mr President, He Calls Him Dear Mr Secretary. Have You Ever Noticed That? Why Is That? Because He's Not The President Of North Korea, He's The Head Of The Communist Party, The North Korean Workers' Party And He's The Head Of The Army. He's Not Head Of The State. The Head Of The State Is His Father, Who's Been Dead For 15 Years.

Father

Party

Writing

I'd Always Somehow Felt Slightly As If I'd Been Born In The Wrong Country.

Country

Born

Felt

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

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

I Have Been Taunting The Reaper Into Taking A Free Scythe In My Direction And Have Now Succumbed To Something So Predictable And Banal That It Bores Even Me.

Scythes

Reaper

Bores

I Had Real Plans For My Next Decade And Felt I'd Worked Hard Enough To Earn It. Will I Really Not Live To See My Children Married? To Watch The World Trade Center Rise Again? To Read - If Not Indeed Write - The Obituaries Of Elderly Villains Like Henry Kissinger And Joseph Ratzinger?

Children

Real

Writing

We Know Of No Spectacle More Ridiculous—or More Contemptible—than That Of The Religious Reactionaries Who Dare To Re-write The History Of Our Republic. Or Who Try To Do So. Is It Possible That, In Their Vanity And Stupidity, They Suppose That They Can Erase The Name Of Thomas Jefferson And Replace It With The Name Of Some Faith-based Mediocrity Whose Name Is Already Obscure? If So, We Cheerfully Resolve To Mock Them, And To Give Them The Lie In Their Teeth.

Religious

Lying

Writing

Chemotherapy Isn't Good For You. So When You Feel Bad, As I Am Feeling Now, You Think, 'well That Is A Good Thing Because It's Supposed To Be Poison. If It's Making The Tumor Feel This Queasy, Then I'm Ok With It.'

Thinking

Feelings

Poison

Whenever I Hear Some Bigmouth In Washington Or The Christian Heartland Banging On About The Evils Of Sodomy Or Whatever, I Mentally Enter His Name In My Notebook And Contentedly Set My Watch. Sooner Rather Than Later, He Will Be Discovered Down On His Weary And Well-worn Old Knees In Some Dreary Motel Or Latrine, With An Expired Visa Card, Having Tried To Pay Well Over The Odds To Be Peed Upon By Some Apache Transvestite.

Notebook

Christian

Names

It [defending Salmon Rushdie] Was, If I Can Phrase It Like This, A Matter Of Everything I Hated Versus Everything I Loved. In The Hate Column: Dictatorship, Religion, Stupidity, Demagogy, Censorship, Bullying And Intimidation. In The Love Column: Literature, Irony, Humor, The Individual And The Defense Of Free Expression.

Bullying

Hate

Expression

The Postmodernists' Tyranny Wears People Down By Boredom And Semi-literate Prose.

People

Boredom

Tyranny

It's A Big Mistake To Think That Your Own Cause, Or Your Own Country, Or Your Own Side Has God In Its Corner. For One Thing, It Commits The Sin Of Pride.

Country

Mistake

Pride

As The Many Male Victims Of Rape In The Regime's Disgusting Jails Can Testify, This State-run Pathology Of Sexual Repression And Sexual Sadism Is Not Content To Degrade Women Only.

Running

Jail

Sadism

I Became A Journalist Because One Didn't Have To Specialise.

Journalist

People Are Frightened Of Death, And The Central Lie Of All Religion Is That There’s A Cure For This And An Exception We’ve Made In Your Own Case: An Eternal Life Offered If You Make The Right Propitiations And The Right Abjections. Well, I’m Sorry. I Think That It's The Height Of Immorality To Lie To People Like That. That’s Why [religion] Survives.

Sorry

Lying

Thinking

Arguments That Explain Everything... Explain Nothing

Argument

And The Pleasures And Rewards Of The Intellect Are Inseparable From Angst, Uncertainty, Conflict And Even Despair.

Despair

Rewards

Conflict

I'm A Member Of No Party. I Have No Ideology. I'm A Rationalist. I Do What I Can In The International Struggle Between Science And Reason And The Barbarism, Superstition And Stupidity That's All Around Us.

Party

Struggle

Stupidity

[p]erhaps You Notice How The Denial Is So Often The Preface To The Justification.

Denial

Justification

He's A Man [george W. Bush] Who Is Lucky To Be Governor Of Texas. He Is A Man Who Is Unusually Incurious, Abnormally Unintelligent, Amazingly Inarticulate, Fantastically Uncultured, Extraordinarily Uneducated, And Apparently Quite Proud Of All These Things.

Men

Texas

Proud

It's Amazing How Relaxing It Is Not To Claim You Know More Than You Do. I'm Surprised That Those Who Claim To Speak In The Name Of God Don't Take More Advantage Of This Relief.

Names

Relief

Speak

Urging Humans To Be Superhumans, On Pain Of Death And Torture, Is The Urging Of Terrible Self-abasement At Their Repeated And Inevitable Failure To Keep The Rules.

Atheist

Pain

Self

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

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

If You Think That The Intifada In France Is About Housing, Go And Try Covering The Story Wearing A Yarmulka .

Thinking

Trying

Covering

Unless A Reincarnationist Is Willing To Say There Was A 'first Generation' Of Souls Created With The First Humans, He Is Exposed To Absurdity By The Recency Of Human Life On The Planet.

Soul

Generations

Firsts

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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