Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. Don't say that as … - Christopher Hitchens

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When we lived in a society where we had large families that lived together, especially in agricultural societies like my grandfather and father grew up in, the result is you always had family around to take care of you.

Christopher Hitchens

Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. Don't say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she really was a boy, in which case you have probably thrown away a better intro. If something is worth hearing or listening to, it's very probably worth reading. So, this above all: Find your own voice.

Boys, Grandmother, Read, Reading, Voice

Same Author Quotes

In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.

People, Religion, Universe, Wicked, Youll

I have no time to waste on this planet being told what to do by those who think that God has given them instructions.

Instruction, Planet, Thinking, Time, Told, Waste

Many writers, especially male ones, have told us that it is the decease of the father which opens the prospect of one's own end, and affords an unobstructed view of the undug but awaiting grave that says 'you're next. ' Unfilial as this may seem, that was not at all so in my own case. It was only when I watched Alexander [my own son] being born that I knew at once that my own funeral director had very suddenly, but quite unmistakably, stepped onto the stage. I was surprised by how calmly I took this, but also by how reluctant I was to mention it to my male contemporaries.

Awaiting, Father, Funeral, Son, Views

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.

Atoms, Concluded, Idea, Ideas, Infancy Is, Nobody

We have no proof that Socrates ever existed. We only know from witnesses to his life that he did. Like Jesus, he never wrote anything down. It doesn't matter to me whether he did or not exist because we have his teachings, his method of thinking, and his extreme intellectual and moral courage.

Exist, Jesus, Matter, Teaching, Thinking