Arguably: Selected Prose

by Christopher Hitchens

The people who must never have power are the humorless.

The prince’s official job description as king will be “defender of the faith,” which currently means the state-financed absurdity of the Anglican Church, but he has more than once said publicly that he wants to be anointed as defender of all faiths—another indication of the amazing conceit he has developed in six decades of performing the only job allowed him by the hereditary principle: that of waiting for his mother to expire.

As William Faulkner said about the Deep South, the past is never dead. Here, it’s not even past.