“ We fell, but we never let the box fall from our hands. Then we ran. We ran blindly, and men and houses streaked past us in a torrent without shape. Ayn Rand
“ It’s a law of survival, isn’t it?—to seek the best. I didn’t come for your sake. I came for mine. Ayn Rand
“ If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: 'The public good be damned, I will have no part of it! Ayn Rand
“ You never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn’t want me to show it. You wanted an act to help your act... Ayn Rand
“ She wanted to tell him of the years she had spent looking for men such as he to work with; she wanted to tell him that his enemies were hers, that she was fighting the same battle... Ayn Rand
“ It was the only lie she ever told. She did not do it to protect Francisco; she did it because she felt, for some reason which she could not define, that the incident was a secret too precious to share… Ayn Rand
“ She lay on her back, looking up at the sky, feeling no desire to move or think or know that there was any time beyond this moment. Ayn Rand
“ I’ll listen if you want me to... But I think I should tell you now that nothing you can say will make any difference. If you don’t mind that, I don’t mind listening. Ayn Rand
“ And isn’t that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself… Ayn Rand
“ Most people feel that they rise in their own eyes, if others want them.”“I feel that others live up to me, if they want me... Ayn Rand
“ ...What kind of a tragedy did you have in your childhood?""Why, none at all. I had a wonderful childhood. Free and peaceful and not bothered too much by anybody. Well, yes, I did feel bored very often… Ayn Rand
“ [Howard Roark] was asked for a statement, and he received a group of reporters in his office. He spoke without anger. He said:'I can't tell anyone anything about my building. If I prepared a hash of w… Ayn Rand
“ What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egotists. You don’t think through another’s brain and you don’t work through another’s hands. When you suspend… Ayn Rand
“ You can fake virtue for an audience. You can’t fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. Ayn Rand
“ A gracefully effortless floating, flowing and flying are the essentials of the ballet’s image of man. Ayn Rand
“ The unrecognized genius-that's one old story. Have you ever thought of a much worse one-the genius recognized too well? Ayn Rand
“ The unrecognized genius—that’s an old story. Have you ever thought of a much worse one—the genius recognized too well? ... That a great many men are poor fools who can’t see the best—that’s nothing. O… Ayn Rand
“ ...she stood beside him, sagging in his arms, abandoning herself to anything he wished, in open acknowledgment of his power to reduce her to helplessness by the pleasure he had the power to give her. Ayn Rand
