"At home at one of the raucous, joyous, impromptu eight-hour dinners we often found ourselves hosting..."

"... where the table was so crammed with ambassadors, hacks, political dissidents, college students and children that elbows were colliding and it was hard to find the space to put down a glass of wine, my husband would rise to give a toast that could go on for a stirring, spellbinding, hysterically funny 20 minutes of poetry and limerick reciting, a call to arms for a cause, and jokes. 'How good it is to be us,' he would say in his perfect voice."

Writes Carol Blue, the widow of Christopher Hitchens.