I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!

You don't have to see through the eyes of others, hold onto yours, stand on your own judgment, you know that what is, is–say it aloud, like the holiest of prayers, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'

There's nothing of any importance in life — except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value.

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.

To achieve, you need thought

She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.