Thoughts from Ayn Rand

Perhaps some of you have had the pleasure of reading and Ayn Rand novel. I certainly did this fall. While her sex scenes are disturbing and the world which she creates is a good stretch from the one we inhabit, her novels contain some truth. I'm sure she believed in her intensly modernistic philosophy, but I can't help but take it in an inderect Kierkegaardian way. Like when you have an argument with a fundamentalist and say some rather left handed things, not because you absolutely believe them but only because you are trying to move that person's view more towrads the center. Well enough intro. Here's what she thinks:

One lineners from Howard Roark (the protagonist from The Fountainhead)

"I owe you an apology. I don't usually let things happen to me."

"My dear fellow, who will let you?" "That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?"

"...it's such a big responsibility, really to want something."

"Men hate passion, any great passion."

"Before you can do things for people, you must first be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences."

"There's a particular kind of people I despise. Those who seek some sort of higher purpose or 'universal goal,' who don't know what to live for, who moan that they must 'find themselves.' You hear it all around us. That seems to be the official bromide (look it up) of our century. Every book you open. Every drooling self-confession. It seems to be the noble thing to confess. I'd think it would be the most shameful one."

Please let me know what you think...