Christopher Hitchens was a revered columnist and author who penned the books 'God Is Not Great', "Hitch 22" and 'Mortality'. Recounting their first ever meeting his long-time friend Neal Pollack says, "University, as you know, is the only time in one’s life when anything really worthwhile happens. I met Hitch there. The first time I saw him, he had a bird on each arm and a woman by his side. She beamed as he read aloud passages from “Homage to Catalonia.” He looked up.
“Who the hell are you?” he said.
“I’m your housemate,” I said.
“Are you in favor of the war in Vietnam?”
“Of course not.”
Hitch put down the book and took a swig of cheap Scotch.
“Good,” he said. “Because I refuse to fraternize with men who are afraid to be intellectual heroes.”
Recounting another incident where Hitchens behaved in his trademark style when enraged, Pollack says, "He took ideas so seriously that if he disagreed with you on a matter that he deemed important, he’d literally throw you in a ditch. It was 1972, the height of our mutual virility. He and I went to a pub to celebrate his most recent intellectual victory over the establishment press. I intimated that sometimes women could be funny on purpose. Even back then, the thought enraged him. Hitchens threw a drink in my face, pressed a lit cigarette into my neck, and hit me over the head with a barstool. The next thing I knew, it was two days later and I was lying hogtied and naked beside the M5. Hitch had already severely damaged my reputation in a vicious essay in the Guardian. But that’s how he operated, and that’s why we loved him."
Here is a collection of inspirational quotes by Christopher Hitchens.