Mortality

by Christopher Hitchens

To the dumb question “Why me?” the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?

However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that “whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

Amazing how heart and lungs and liver have held up: would have been healthier if I’d been more sickly.