You should be nicer to him,' a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-favored boy. 'He has no friends.' This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can still remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the importance of kindness and how perceptions of friendships can change based on people's attitudes.
In this quote, Christopher Hitchens reflects on a moment from his youth when he was reminded to be kinder to a boy who lacked friends due to his unfortunate appearance. The pang of pity he felt underscores the notion that social acceptance and friendship can be fleeting and are often determined by collective agreement; if people choose to be kind, they can change someone's social standing and experience.
In practice
During a discussion about bullying, this quote can remind us to be empathetic.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
I do not want a friend who smiles when I smile, who weeps when I weep; for my shadow in the pool can do better than that.
A friend is one with whom you are comfortable, to whom you are loyal, through whom you are blessed, and for whom you are grateful.
I can do much, I can do everything for a man who will be my friend. I can give him power; I can give him wealth. I can give him reputation - the power, the wealth, the reputation which come to a man who speaks to a million people a day in the columns of a great paper.
Hear no ill of a friend, nor speak any of an enemy.
To clink glasses of a freshly made, seasonal beer, preferably in a pub or garden, with friends and perhaps new acquaintances, is a ritual that makes every participant feel good. We may not rationalize this at the time, but it gives us a sense of place in our common community and our time in the tides of life on earth. This is a way to value beer and treat it with respect.
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
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