p.61 He [Roark] was usually disliked, from the first sight of his face, anywhere he went. His face was closed like the door of a safety vault; things locked in safety vaults are valuable; men did not care to feel that. He was a cold, disquieting presence in the room; his presence had a strange quality: it made itself felt and yet it made them feel that he was not there; or perhaps that he was and they weren't.
Ayn RandTo love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men.
Ayn RandEven in dialogue, your own style rules your selection. Do not give yourself a blank check of this kind: 'I'll merely reproduce what I think a character like so-and-so would say.' You have to reproduce it in the way your literary premises dictate.
Ayn RandWe are on strike against martyrdomโand against the moral code that demands it. We are on strike against those who believe that one man must exist for the sake of another. We are on strike against the morality of cannibals, be it practiced in body or in spirit. We will not deal with men on any terms but oursโand our terms are a moral code which holds that man is an end in himself and not the means to any end of others.
Ayn RandA โcollectiveโ mind does not exist. It is merely the sum of endless numbers of individual minds. If we have an endless number of individual minds who are weak, meek, submissive and impotent โ who renounce their creative supremacy for the sake of the โwholeโ and accept humbly that the โwholeโsโ verdict โ we donโt get a collective super-brain. We get only the weak, meek, submissive and impotent collective mind.
Ayn Rand