Christopher Hitchens: Friends, Fans Mourn The Late Journalist And Atheist

Note from the Editor: Journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens died on Dec. 15 of pneumonia, a complication of esophageal cancer. He was 62. The following are quotes of remembrance from his friends and fans.

"Christopher was the beau ideal of the public intellectual. You felt as though he was writing to you and to you alone. And as a result many readers felt they knew him. Walking with him down the street in New York or through an airplane terminal was like escorting a movie star through the throngs." --Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter

"Over the course of his heroic, uncomplaining 18-month battle with the cancer, I found myself rehearsing what I might say to an obituary writer, should one ring after the news of Christopher's death. I thought to say something along the lines -- the air of Byron, the steel pen of Orwell, and the wit of Wilde." --Satirist Christopher Buckley

"Editing Christopher Hitchens, who died Thursday at the age of 62, was the easiest job in journalism. He never filed late -- in fact, he was usually early, even when he was clearly very sick -- and he managed to make his work seem like a great lark. His weekly e-mails always read the same jaunty way: 'Herewith. Hope it serves, As always, Christopher.'" --Slate editor June Thomas

"Like all of us, he was often wrong, but never in the way everyone else was wrong. His originality was a constant, his independence an unstoppable engine. He loved to argue and debate, not because he was a bully but because he thought it pointed in the direction of truth. And possibly because he was better at it than anyone else." --Journalist Jacob Weisberg

"Few have written so movingly, so bravely and with such self-awareness about coming to terms with impending death. The announcement of a 'Pray for Christopher Hitchens Day' must have caused him more than a wry smile. 'Don't bother unless it makes you feel better,' he said. There could be few less likely deathbed conversions." --Patrick Gallagher, Hitchens' Australian publisher

"We shall miss you, your voice, your pen, & most of all your mind Christopher. The world is better because of you." --Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine

"Goodbye, my beloved friend. A great voice falls silent. A great heart stops. " --Author Salman Rushdie

"Christopher Hitchens, finest orator of our time, fellow horseman, valiant fighter against all tyrants including God." --Author Richard Dawkins

Comments

[nobodysgirl]

05:20 PM on 12/16/2011

Goodbye, dear man, how I adore and love you.

I feel such a sense of personal loss, strange as that may sound. There are no more CH's out there. He was unique in every sense of the word, and I hope I may still get to meet him, in whatever comes after this trip.

A genuinely sad day. I've been dreading it for a year now.

[rozc]

04:27 PM on 12/16/2011

Tonight I shall raise a glass to one of the brilliant minds of our time. Goodbye Hitch. I'm going to miss you . . .

[Tomonkeys]

02:08 PM on 12/16/2011

I am very sad this day has come. Over the past year I've become more interested in Hitch and have been watching many of his debates (on You Tube). I am also about half way through Hitch-22. In it he makes the point that how reading the work of a favorite author should be like a shipwreck to your senses. That's the impact his writing has had on me. I was able to obtain his personal email address and I drafted a note of encouragement to him on Dec 5, but I delayed sending it - I wanted it to express my thoughts accurately - admiration without being patronizing. However, I did not send it and it's something I regret. I don't know if he would have read it at that point in his illness, but the point is moot now. The main thing I loved about him (and wrote this in the never sent email) was that he stuck to his guns, especially in the face of opposition and harsh criticizm. He did not sell out, and didn't care if he pissed people off (it sounds like he enjoyed). That's a quliaty I'd like to have more of. I will continue to take inspiration from his words. Tom in NYC. P.S. Apologies for ending several sentences in this comment with prepositions. That's something up with which Hitch would not put. (Hitchens paraphrasing Churchill as he liked to do with that particular saying).

[usersuz]

01:53 PM on 12/16/2011

Here's to Hitchens: he gave so many the courage to openly say they just didn't believe, to shake off the bonds of convention and be public about their liberation. Because of him, the world is a more reasonable place.

[Lona Tucker]

01:16 PM on 12/16/2011

Dear Christopher "Hitch" Hitchens, I love you and hate the thought you have gone from this earth ~ you are out in the universe now ~ your sterling spirit has been released. What words can I say, words belong to you, not even you can debate that!

[filmacher]

12:19 PM on 12/16/2011

Lets not forget even a great intellectual like Hitchens was conned by the great fraud that was the Iraq War.

[goomack14]

03:50 PM on 12/16/2011

Oh, man...thanks! WOW! Can you believe we would forget something like that!? Jeez, phew. Thanks for bringing that to the table.

Have you ever read or listened to anything he had to say on the subject?

[SURFERMOM]

11:32 AM on 12/16/2011

He was a fearless writer about God,cancer,death,pain,friendship,opinions and illness.
I thoroughly enjoyed all his articles in Vanity Fair.
It is pathetic that the one person commenting about religion and Hitchens in a"Jesus Freak" kind of way couldn't even be bothered to use a preposition in their sentence before they posted it uneditied and make it grammitically pleasing to read.It shows the laziness of their mind.

[Talossa]

11:24 AM on 12/16/2011

And when it comes time for Ann Coulter to slip the surly bonds of earth, I'm sure the overreaction on the part of the Right will be just as gushing.

[filmacher]

12:20 PM on 12/16/2011

The last intellectual on the right died with William Buckley. Now it's a party of frauds, con artists, charlatans, half wits and incurious anti-intellectual buffoons. Let us hope and pray that the republican party goes the way of the whig party in the next few years, or else this country may never recover from the damage done to our safety net, our national cohesion, and our sanity.

[Talossa]

12:52 AM on 12/17/2011

Amen!

[Michael Doane]

09:33 AM on 12/17/2011

Ann Coulter possesses nothing even approaching what Hitchens had. If you remove the snark and bile from her writing, the only words left are "the" and "and".

[Talossa]

11:38 PM on 12/17/2011

And if you remove snark, bile, and clever verbal rejoinders from Hitchens, there's not much left either. A pity that such a good writer had nothing to say.

[Dan Stewart]

11:10 AM on 12/16/2011

Hitchen's: a man of immense courage of convictions and fierce intellectual power.  I will miss his words greatly.

(I think in tribute to Hitchen's, HP moderators should open this thread to all comments, for and against.  Hitch would've wanted it that way.)

[TYRANNASAURUS]

10:22 AM on 12/16/2011

Christopher Hitchens: Friends, Fans Mourn The Late Journalist And Atheist ....

So sorry about this....we need all the bright reasoning atheist we can produce.

[Jeremyewilliams]

10:05 AM on 12/16/2011

We've lost one of the Greats.

[lijebailey]

09:29 AM on 12/16/2011

Gee, where's all the anti-atheist comments? Perhaps too fearful, knowing that they'd be dealing with real intellectuals on this article?

[kwoodgr]

10:16 AM on 12/16/2011

He has finally met Jesus and full of joy!

[peter ricci]

11:39 AM on 12/16/2011

How could you possibly know this?

[flaven]

12:41 PM on 12/16/2011

Wrong. He had been dead for billions of years before life, with no ill-effect. Now, Christopher has gone back to being dead. There's really nothing supernormal about that.

[tedlove]

09:13 AM on 12/16/2011

“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.”
― Christopher Hitchens

[ikesnephew]

01:00 PM on 12/16/2011

This is not a Hitchens quote, it's from an essay by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 'How (And Why) I Became An Infidel', which appears in "The Portable Atheist", a collection of writings compiled by Christopher Hitchens. They are not his words, but I think it's safe to say that he approved of them.

[partisanpolitico]

08:21 AM on 12/16/2011

From "Letters to a Contrarian" through his last book, I have loved his humanistic point of view.
I'll miss him greatly.
Both my college age kids will as well.
RIP.

[KarateKid]

08:04 AM on 12/16/2011

I didn't always agree with what he said or wrote, but I enjoyed every one of his works. God Is Not Good was one of his best.

[Huew123]

11:33 AM on 12/16/2011

"God is not great" is the title of the book.

[KarateKid]

12:37 PM on 12/16/2011

oops

[flaven]

12:42 PM on 12/16/2011

Well, god's not good, either...