Ruthless And Arrogant Though Power Can Appear, It Is Only Ever Held By Mere Mammals Who Excrete And Yearn, And Who Suffer From Insomnia And Insecurity. These Mammals Are Also Necessarily Vain In The extreme, And Often Wish To Be Liked Almost As Much As They Desire To Be Feared.

-Christopher Hitchens

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Ruthless And Arrogant Though

Christopher Hitchens

Topic

Power

Insomnia

Insecurity

More From Christopher Hitchens

I Don't Think Souls Or Bodies Can Be Changed By Incantation. Or Anything Else By The Way.

Thinking

Soul

Body

Alcohol Makes Other People Less Tedious, And Food Less Bland, And Can Help Provide What The Greeks Called Entheos, Or The Slight Buzz Of Inspiration When Reading Or Writing Visiting Today's Iran, I Was Delighted To Find That Citizens Made A Point Of Defying The Clerical Ban On Booze, Keeping It In Their Homes For Visitors Even If They Didn't Particularly Take To It Themselves, And Bootlegging It With Great Brio And Ingenuity. These Small Revolutions Affirm The Human.

Inspiration

Reading

Home

There's Been Some Research In Cognitive Science, I'm Told, That Discloses That There Have Always Been Perhaps 10 To 15 Percent Of People Who Are, As Pascal Puts It, So Made That They Cannot Believe. To Us, When People Talk About Faith, It's White Noise.

Believe

White

People

The Easiest Way To Establish A Dictatorship Is To Claim You Are God's Representative On Earth.

Religion

Earth

Way

There Are, After All, Atheists Who Say They Wish The Fable Were True But Are Unable To Suspend The Requisite Disbelief, Or Who Have Relinquished Belief Only With Regret. To This I Reply: Who Wishes That There Was A Permanent, Unalterable Celestial Despotism That Subjected Us To Continual Surveillance And Could Convict Us Of Thought-crime, And Who Regarded Us As Its Private Property Even After We Died? How Happy We Ought To Be, At The Reflection That There Exists Not A Shred Of Respectable Evidence To Support Such A Horrible Hypothesis.

Atheist

Regret

Reflection

I Joined A Small But Growing Post-trotskyite Luxembourgist Sect.

Growing

Posts

Sects

For Some Reason, Which I Believe I Can Guess, The Churches/mosques Want Control Of People When Or While They Are The Most Vulnerable Or Suggestible. If They Can't Get Them In School, Then They Get Them When They Are Hungry, Or Frightened, Or Ill, Or Homeless, Or Unemployed. Same Difference. Here's Your Gruel, And Here's A Tract.

Believe

School

Differences

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

The Pre-history Of Our Species Is Hag-ridden With Episodes Of Nightmarish Ignorance And Calamity, For Which Religion Used To Identify, Not Just The Wrong Explanation, But The Wrong Culprit. Human Sacrifices Were Made Preeminently In Times Of Epidemics, Useless Prayers Were Uttered, Bogus Miracles Attested To, And Scapegoats - Such As Jews Or Heretics Or Witches - Hunted Down And Burned.

Prayer

Ignorance

Sacrifice

'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

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

I Mean, What Would I Be Doing If I Couldn't Write? But That Fortunately Hasn't Proved To Be The Case And I Can Read Any Day. I Still Read A Lot, And I Can Write Any Day, But Much More Slowly And Fewer Words.

Mean

Writing

Cases

Plainly, This Unwillingness To Give Ground Even On Unimportant Disagreements Is The Symptom Of Some Deepseated Insecurity, As Was My One-time Fondness For Making Teasing Remarks (which I Amended When I Read Anthony Powell's Matter-of-fact Observation That Teasing Is An Unfailing Sign Of Misery Within) And As Is My Very Pronounced Impatience. The Struggle, Therefore, Is To Try And Cultivate The Virtuous Side Of These Shortcomings: To Be A Genial Host While Only Slightly Whiffled, For Example, Or To Be Witty At The Expense Of One's Own Weaknesses Instead Of Those Of Other People.

Witty

Struggle

People

The Finest Fury Is The Most Controlled.

Finest

Fury

Controlled

If People I've Never Met Or Don't Know Say That What I've Written Or Done Or Said Means Anything To Them, Then I'm Happy To Take It At Face Value, For Once. It Cheers Me Up.

Cheer

Mean

People

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

The Death Toll Is Not Nearly High Enough... Too Many [jihadists] Have Escaped.

Tolls

Enough

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.

Thoughtful

Intelligent

Thinking

Yes, I, Well, When I Write, As Often As I Can, I Try To Write As If I'm Talking To People. It Doesn't Always Work, And One Shouldn't Always Try It, But I Try And Write As If I Am Talking, And Trying To Engage The Reader In Conversation.

Writing

Talking

People

The People Who Tend To Raise Antiwar Slogans Will Do So Generally When It's American Or British Interests Involved.

People

British

Interest

To Remember Friendship Is To Recall Those Conversations That It Seemed A Sin To Break Off

Break Off

Remember

Sin

What Can Be Asserted Without Evidence Can Be Dismissed Without Evidence.

Inspirational

Wisdom

Atheist

Alcohol Makes Other People Less Tedious, And Food Less Bland, And Can Help Provide What The Greeks Called Entheos, Or The Slight Buzz Of Inspiration When Reading Or Writing

Inspiration

Reading

Writing

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

Transformation

Modern

Dentistry

Writing Is What's Important To Me, And Anything That Helps Me Do That - Or Enhances And Prolongs And Deepens And Sometimes Intensifies Argument And Conversation - Is Worth It To Me. [it Is] Impossible For Me To Imagine Having My Life Without Going To Those Parties, Without Having Those Late Nights, Without That Second Bottle.

Party

Writing

Night

You Don't Say 'they All Do It' Unless You Know You've Been Doing It Too.

Knows

If You've Led A Rather Bohemian And Rackety Life, As I Have, It's Precisely The Cancer That You'd Expect To Get. That's A Bit Of A Yawn.

Cancer

Bohemian

Bits

You Know, You Can Make A Small Mistake In Language Or Etiquette In Britain, Or You Could When I Was Younger, And Really Be Made To Feel It, And It's The Flick Of A Lash, But It Would Sting, And Especially At School Where There's Not Much Privacy, And So On. You Could, Yes, Undoubtedly Be Made To Feel Crushed.

Mistake

School

Language

Islamophobia: A Word Created By Fascists, And Used By Cowards, To Manipulate Morons.

Coward

Used

Fascists

A Lot Of People, Because Of My Contempt For The False Consolations Of Religion, Think Of Me As A Symbolic Public Opponent Of That In Extremis. And Sometimes That Makes Me Feel A Bit Alarmed, To Be The Repository Of Other People's Hope.

Thinking

People

Opponents

The Realization That American Power Could And Should Be Used For The Defense Of Pluralism And As A Punishment For Fascism Came To Me In Sarajevo A Year Or Two Later... That Was An Early Quarrel Between Me And Many Of My Nation Colleagues, And It Was Also The First Time I Found Myself In The Same Trench As People Like Paul Wolfowitz And Jeane Kirkpatrick: A Shock I Had To Learn To Get Over. 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

Only A Complete Moral Idiot Can Believe For An Instant That We Are Fighting Against The Wretched Of The Earth. We Are Fighting, As I Said Before, Against The Scum Of The Earth

Believe

Fighting

Scum Of The Earth

In One Was, 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. But For Precisely This Reason, I Can't See Myself Smiting My Brow With Shock Or Hear Myself Whining About How It's All So Unfair: 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.

Light

Giving

Lovely

I Have Met Some Highly Intelligent Believers, But History Has No Record To Say That [s]he Knew Or Understood The Mind Of God. Yet This Is Precisely The Qualification Which The Godly Must Claim—so Modestly And So Humbly—to Possess. It Is Time To Withdraw Our 'respect' From Such Fantastic Claims, All Of Them Aimed At The Exertion Of Power Over Other Humans In The Real And Material World.

Atheist

Real

Godly

I Vote And I Do Jury Duty.

Vote

Duty

Jury Duty

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

Of Course, I Do Everything For Money.

Courses

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

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

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

Doubt, Skepticism, Innovation, And Inquiry Are The Only Means By Which Wonder, Beauty, Awe, And Symmetry Will Be Discovered.

Mean

Innovation

Doubt

The Beauty Of Science Hugely Outranks The Charms Of Superstition.

Superstitions

Charm

I Retain What's Interesting To Me, But I Don't Have A Lot Of Strategic Depth.

Interesting

Depth

Strategic

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

Only The Force Of American Arms, Or The Extremely Credible Threat Of That Force, Can Bring A Fresh Face To Power.

Arms

Faces

Force

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

(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

Thanks To The Telescope And The Microscope, Religion No Longer Offers An Explanation For Anything Important.

Religion

Atheism

Important

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

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

The Trade-off Between Freedom And Security, So Often Proposed So Seductively, Very Often Leads To The Loss Of Both.

Loss

Trade

Eternal Vigilance

Cancer Victimhood Contains A Permanent Temptation To Be Self-centred And Even Solipsistic.

Cancer

Self

Temptation

What Happens To The Faith Healer And The Shaman When Any Poor Citizen Can See The Full Effect Of Drugs Or Surgeries, Administered Without Ceremonies Or Mystifications? Roughly The Same Thing As Happens To The Rainmaker When The Climatologist Turns Up, Or To The Diviner From The Heavens When Schoolteachers Get Hold Of Elementary Telescopes.

I Say 'merry Christmas' To People I Don't Know, Or To People I Know Are Christians. I Say 'happy Hanukkah' To People I Know To Be Or Suspect To Be Jewish. And I Don't Say 'happy Kwanzaa,' Because I Think African Americans Get Enough Insults All Year Round.

Christian

Merry Christmas

Thinking

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

I Think The Materialist Conception Of History Is Valid.

Thinking

Conception

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

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

Even The Most Humane And Compassionate Of The Monotheisms And Polytheisms Are Complicit In This Quiet And Irrational Authoritarianism: They Proclaim Us, In Fulke Greville's Unforgettable Line, "created Sick Commanded To Be Well." And There Are Totalitarian Insinuations To Back This Up If Its Appeal Should Fail.

Sick

Lines

Quiet

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

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

To The Dumb Question, 'why Me?' The Cosmos Barely Bothers To Return The Reply, 'why Not?'

Dumb

Cosmos

Why Not

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

Don't Swallow Your Moral Code In Tablet Form.

Tablets

Moral

Form

I Apply The Abraham Lincoln Test For Moral Casuistry: 'if Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong.' Well, Then, If Waterboarding Does Not Constitute Torture, Then There Is No Such Thing As Torture.

Doe

Slavery

Tests

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

Lying

Independent

Thinking

There Can Be No Progress Without Head-on Confrontation.

Progress

Argument

Confrontation

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

Risk

Want

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

Boredom

Dies

Sheer

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

There Are Days When I Miss My Old Convictions As If They Were An Amputated Limb. But In General I Feel Better, And No Less Radical, And You Will Feel Better Too, I Guarantee, Once You Leave Hold Of The Doctrinaire And Allow Your Chainless Mind To Do Its Own Thinking.

Atheist

Feel Better

Thinking

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

[today's Left] Would Have Left Us With Slobodan Milosevic In Power, Bosnia Ethnically Cleansed, Kosovo Part Of Greater Serbia, Afghanistan Under The Taliban, And Iraq The Property Of A Psychopathic Crime Family. Now, I'm Sorry To Say, I've No Patience With That Leftist Mentality Anymore.

Sorry

Iraq

Bosnia

One Can't Live Without Fear, It's A Question Of What Is Your Attitude Towards Fear? I'm Afraid Of A Sordid Death. I'm Afraid That I Will Die In An Ugly Or Squalid Way, And Cancer Can Be Very Vigorous In That Respect.

Attitude

Cancer

Ugly

Gullibility And Credulity Are Considered Undesireable Qualities In Every Department Of Human Life - Except Religion ... Why Are We Praised By Godly Men For Surrendering Our 'godly Gift' Of Reason When We Cross Their Mental Thresholds?

Atheist

Godly

Men

I Don't Think The Soul Is Immortal, Or At Least Not Immortal In Individuals, But It May Be Immortal As An Aspect Of The Human Personality Because When I Talk About What Literature Nourishes, It Would Be Silly Of Me Or Reductionist To Say That It Nourishes The Brain.

Silly

Thinking

Personality

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

Atheist

Science

Religion

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

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

I'm Afraid The Ss's Relationship With The Catholic Church Is Something The Church Still Has To Deal With And Does Not Deny.

Catholic

Church

Doe

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.

Children

Growing Up

Revenge

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

If The Qur'an Was The Word Of God, It Had Been Dictated On A Very Bad Day.

Bad Day

Islam

Word Of God

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

Tests

Life Is

Intrusion

I Can't Find The Compulsory Mutilation Of The Genitals Of Children A Subject For Humor... It's Designed To Repress Sexual Pleasure... The Full Excision, Not Just The Snip But The Full Mandatory Covenant Is Fantastically Painful, Leads To Trauma, Leads To The Dulling Of The Sexual Relationship. And Can Be, In Itself Life-threatening At That Moment. We Have Records, I Can Show Them To You, Of Hundreds And Hundreds And Hundreds In The United States Of Boy Babies Who Died Or Had Life-threatening Infections As A Result Of This Disgusting Practice.

Baby

Atheist

Children

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

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

Religion Gets Its Morality From Us. We Don't Get Our Morality From Religion.

Religion

Morality

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

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

I've Proved To Be As Difficult To Convert As I Am To Hypnotize.

Difficult

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

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

Writing

Composing

Sentences

The Enormous Dynamic And Creative, As Well As Destructive Energy Of Capitalism... Is Written Up With More Praise And More Respect By Marx And Engels In The 1848 Communist Manifesto Than Probably By Anyone Since. I Don't Think Anyone Has Ever Said So Precisely And With Such Awed Admiration How Great Capitalism Is, How Inventive, How Innovative, How Dynamic, How Much Force Of Creativity It Unleashes.

Creativity

Thinking

Creative

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

[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

I Could Be Spending Time Looking Through A Telescope Or Into A Microscope And Finding Out The Most Extraordinary, Wonderful Things, But People Say Faith Can Move Mountains. Faith In What, By The Way? You Haven't Said.

Moving

People

Mountain

There Are Two Clocks Ticking In Iran. One Is The Democracy Movement Clock Which Is Ticking Now Faster Than It Was But It's Got A Lot Of Catching Up To Do. And Then There's The Clock That's Ticking Towards A Nuclear Weaponry.

Iran

Two

Democracy

Nothing Optional -- From Homosexuality To Adultery -- Is Ever Made Punishable Unless Those Who Do The Prohibiting (and Exact The Fierce Punishment) Have A Repressed Desire To Participate.

Punishment

Desire

Fierce

It's Much Worse To See A Woman Drunk Than A Man: I Don't Know Quite Why This Is True But It Just Is. Don't Ever Be Responsible For It.

Men

Drunk

Responsible

If I Was To Interrupt This Article Every Few Sentences, Asking You Whether Or Not I Was Making A Good Impression On You, I Hope And Believe That You Would Think I Was A Servile Jerk. Yet This Is What Our Politicians Are Doing In Every Speech.

Believe

Thinking

Political

I Burned The Candle At Both Ends And It Often Gave A Lovely Light.

Light

Lovely

Ends

We Keep On Being Told That Religion, Whatever Its Imperfections, At Least Instills Morality. On Every Side, There Is Conclusive Evidence That The Contrary Is The Case And That Faith Causes People To Be More Mean, More Selfish, And Perhaps Above All, More Stupid.

Atheist

Stupid

Selfish

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

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

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

Writing

Apologizing

Forget

I've Been To Uganda And To North Korea And To Eritrea, Countless Horror Spots Around The World.

Uganda

Korea

Eritrea

We Live Only A Few Conscious Decades, And We Fret Ourselves Enough For Several Lifetimes.

Anxiety

Lifetime

Enough

People Until I Was 60 Would Always Say They Thought I Looked Younger, Which I Think, Without Flattering Myself, I Did, But I Think I Certainly Have, As George Orwell Says People Do After A Certain Age, The Face They Deserve.

Thinking

People

Age

I Am A Person Of Faith: I Am A Person Who Will Believe Practically Anything On No Evidence At All.

Believe

Evidence

Persons

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

The Only Position That Leaves Me With No Cognitive Dissonance Is Atheism. It Is Not A Creed. Death Is Certain, Replacing Both The Siren-song Of Paradise And The Dread Of Hell. Life On This Earth, With All Its Mystery And Beauty And Pain, Is Then To Be Lived Far More Intensely: We Stumble And Get Up, We Are Sad, Confident, Insecure, Feel Loneliness And Joy And Love. There Is Nothing More; But I Want Nothing More.

Motivational

Song

Atheist

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

I Learned That Very Often The Most Intolerant And Narrow-minded People Are The Ones Who Congratulate Themselves On Their Tolerance And Open-mindedness.

Hypocrite

People

Tolerance

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

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

People

Boredom

Tyranny

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

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

Primate And Elephant And Even Pig Societies Show Considerable Evidence Of Care For Others, Parent-child Bonding, Solidarity In The Face Of Danger, And So On.

Children

Pigs

Elephants

And When I Was Young, My Family Was Perfectly Nice. I Write A Lot About It, As You Noticed. But It Was Rather Limited. I Think, I Don't Think Anyone In My Family Would Really Feel I'd Done Them An Injustice By Saying That. We Didn't See Many People. There Were Many Books. It Was As If I Wanted To Get Away From Home.

Nice

Book

Writing

It's True That Obscenity Is A Matter Of Taste And In The Eye Of The Beholder.

Eye

Matter

Taste

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

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

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

George Bush Made A Mistake When He Referred To The Saddam Hussein Regime As 'evil.' Every Liberal And Leftist Knows How To Titter At Such Black-and-white Moral Absolutism.

Mistake

Black And White

Moral Absolutism

The True Essence Of A Dictatorship Is In Fact Not Its Regularity But Its Unpredictability And Caprice; Those Who Live Under It Must Never Be Able To Relax, Must Never Be Quite Sure If They Have Followed The Rules Correctly Or Not.

Essence

Relax

Able

Demands That You Believe The Impossible Do Not Lead To Peaceful Outcomes.

Believe

Peaceful

Demand

Mockery Of Religion Is One Of The Most Essential Things... One Of The Beginnings Of Human Emancipation Is The Ability To Laugh At Authority.

Laughing

Religion

Essentials

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

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

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

The People Who Must Never Have Power Are The Humorless. To Impossible Certainties Of Rectitude They Ally Tedium And Uniformity

People

Allies

Impossible

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

The Term 'the American Left' Is As Near To Being Meaningless Or Nonsensical As Any Term Could Really Be In Politics. It Isn't Really A Force In Politics Anymore. And It Would Do Well To Ask Itself Why That Is.

Nonsensical

Force

Term

Religion Of Every Kind Involves The Promise That The Misery And Futility Of Existence Can Be Overcome Or Even Transfigured. One Might Suppose That The Possession Of Such A Magnificent Formula, Combined With The Tremendous Assurance Of A Benevolent God, Would Make A Person Happy. But Such Appears Not To Be The Case.: Unease And Insecurity And Rage Seem To Keep Up With Blissful Certainty, And Even To Outpace It.

Insecurity

Promise

Overcoming

[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

Saddam

Teasing Is Very Often A Sign Of Inner Misery.

Misery

Tease

Human Decency Is Not Derived From Religion. It Precedes It.

Atheist

Religion

Atheism

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

[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.

Careers

Culture

Citizens

The One Thing That The Racist Can Never Manage Is Anything Like Discrimination: He Is Indiscriminate By Definition.

Racist

Definitions

Discrimination

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

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

Despair

Moments

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

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

Millions Of People Die Every Day. Everyone's Got To Go Sometime. I've Came By This Particular Tumor Honestly. If You Smoke, Which I Did For Many Years Very Heavily With Occasional Interruption, And If You Use Alcohol, You Make Yourself A Candidate For It In Your Sixties.

Years

People

Alcohol

The Human Wish To Credit Good Things As Miraculous And To Charge Bad Things To Another Account Is Apparently Universal.

Wish

Credit

Good Things

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

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

If Someone Tells Me That I've Hurt Their Feelings I'm Still Waiting To Hear What Your Point Is.

Atheist

Hurt

Waiting

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

People

Soul

Wish

I Learned That To Be Amusing Was Not To Be Frivolous And That Language - Always The Language - Was The Magic Key As Much To Prose As To Poetry.

Keys

Magic

Language

When I Went To Czechoslovakia Under The Old Communist Regime One Day In The '80s, I Thought To Myself Whatever I Do, Whatever Happens To Me In Prague I'm Not Going To Use The Name Kafka, I'm Just Not Going To Do It. I Won't Do It; It's So Easy, Everyone Else Does, I'm Not Going To. I'll Write The First Non-kafka Mentioning Piece.

Writing

Names

One Day

No, Nothing Is Sacred. And Even If There Were To Be Something Called Sacred, We Mere Primates Wouldn't Be Able To Decide Which Book Or Which Idol Or Which City Was The Truly Holy One. Thus, The Only Thing That Should Be Upheld At All Costs And Without Qualification Is The Right Of Free Expression, Because If That Goes, Then So Do All Other Claims Of Right As Well.

Book

Expression

Idols

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

She's Got No Charisma Of Any Kind [but] I Can Imagine Her Being Mildly Useful To A Low-rank Porn Director.

Directors

Kind

Imagine

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 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.

Islam

Way

Dangerous

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

A Celebrity Is Well Known For Being Well Known. I'm Relatively Well Known - But For What I've Written And Said, Or So I Fondly Imagine.

Imagine

Well Known

Said

I Can Never Quite Decide Whether The Anti-columbus Movement Is Merely Risible Or Faintly Sinister. It Is Sinister, Though, Because It Is An Ignorant Celebration Of Stasis And Backwardness, With An Unpleasant Tinge Of Self-hatred.

Self

Hatred

Ignorant

You Can't Have Occupation And Human Rights.

Rights

Occupation

Human Rights

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

Pain

Memories

Impossible

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

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

I'd Like To Prove To Other People That It's Not The End Of Everything To Be Diagnosed With Cancer.

Cancer

People

Ends

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

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

The Museums Of Medieval Europe, From Holland To Tuscany, Are Crammed With Instruments And Devices Upon Which The Holy Men Labored Devoutly, In Order To See How Long They Could Keep Someone Alive While Being Roasted. It Is Not Needful To Go Into Further Details, But There Were Also Religious Books Of Instruction In This Art, And Guides For The Detection Of Heresy By Pain.

Religious

Art

Pain

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

Perhaps The Values Of Socialists Can Only Be Realized By Socialists In A Nonsocialist Society.

Values

What Is Your Idea Of Earthly Happiness? To Be Vindicated In My Own Lifetime.

Ideas

Lifetime

My Own

In Order To Terminate A Pregnancy, You Have To Still A Heartbeat, Switch Off A Developing Brain.

Pregnancy

Order

Abortion

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'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

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

Believe

President

Fool

Islam Makes Very Large Claims For Itself. In Its Art, There Is A Prejudice Against Representing The Human Form At All. The Prohibition On Picturing The Prophet - Who Was Only Another Male Mammal - Is Apparently Absolute. So Is The Prohibition On Pork Or Alcohol Or, In Some Muslim Societies, Music Or Dancing. Very Well Then, Let A Good Muslim Abstain Rigorously From All These. But If He Claims The Right To Make Me Abstain As Well, He Offers The Clearest Possible Warning And Proof Of An Aggressive Intent.

Art

Dancing

Alcohol

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

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

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

Morality Comes From Humanism And Is Stolen By Religion For Its Own Purposes.

Purpose

Morality

Stolen

What Better Way For A Ruling Class To Claim And Hold Power Than To Pose As The Defenders Of The Nation.

Class

Way

Claims

The One Unforgivable Sin Is To Be Boring.

Unforgivable Sin

Sin

Boring

I Think Being An Atheist Is Something You Are, Not Something You Do.

Atheist

Thinking

To Be In Opposition Is Not To Be A Nihilist.

Nihilist

Opposition

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

Hardest Of All, As One Becomes Older, Is To Accept That Sapient Remarks Can Be Drawn From The Most Unwelcome Or Seemingly Improbable Sources, And That The Apparently More Trustworthy Sources Can Lead One Astray.

Henry Kissinger

Trustworthy

Accepting

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

Mean

Care

Charm

Human Society Is Inconceivable Unless Words Are To Some Extent Bonds.

Humans

Human Society

The Koran Shows Every Sign Of Being Thrown Together By Human Beings, As Do All The Other Holy Books.

Book

Together

Holy

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

People

Made

Havens

Time Spent Arguing With The Faithful Is, Oddly Enough, Almost Never Wasted.

Time

Faithful

Arguing

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

War

Iraq

Als

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

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.

Block

Moving

Russia

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

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

Tactics

Impossible

Terrorism

Three Words For Those Who Want To Put The Christ Back In Christmas: Jingle Bell Rock.

Rocks

Jingles

Three

Though It Is True We Are The Highest And Smartest Animals, Ospreys Have Eyes We Have Calculated To Be Sixty Times More Powerful And Sophisticated Than Our Own And That Blindness, Often Caused By Microscopic Parasites That Are Themselves Miracles Of Ingenuity, Is One Of The Oldest And Most Tragic Disorders Known To Man. And Why Award The Superior Eye (or In The Case Of Cat Or Bat, Also The Ear) To The Inferior Species.

Powerful

Cat

Eye

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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