trust

As a British-American critic, essayist and all-purpose iconoclast, you are known as one of the defining voices of the new atheism. But your just-published memoir, “Hitch-22,” is in fact an exercise in worship — male hero worship. Is it fair to say that you look upon the British novelist Martin Amis as the Messiah? 

No, to the contrary. That’s exactly what would make us both throw up. Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.