The universe of the written word is far poorer with Hitchens' passing. Personally, I often marvelled that, armed with the same lexicon that we all have at our disposal, he did things with it that left me agog. The overall wit that he dislayed in the process, of course, was superlative. Whether you agreed with any point that he made, you had to admire his craft in making it.
Choose any of his columns here to sample, and you will concur: