These quotations are from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, most of them spoken by the story's hero, Howard Roark.
“I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I am only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition.” (Plume Edition, 1994. Page 16)
“An open car drove by, fleeing into the country. The car was overfilled with people bound for a picnic. There was a jumble of bright sweaters, and scarf fluttering in the wind; a jumble of voices shrieking without purpose over the roar of the motor, and overstressed hiccoughs of laughter; a girl sat sideways, her legs flung over the side of the car; she wore a man’s straw hat slipping down her nose and she yanked savagely at the strings of a ukulele, ejecting raucous sounds, yelling, “Hey!” These people were enjoying a day of their existence; they were shrieking to the sky their release from work and the burdens of days behind them; they worked and carried burdens in order to reach a goal—and this was the goal. (Plume Edition, 1994. Page 131)
“… There will be thousands passing by your house and by the gas station. If out of those thousands, one stops and see it—that’s all I need.”
“Then you do need other people, after all, don’t you, Howard?”
“What are you laughing at?”
“I’ve always thought that you were the most anti-social animal I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”
“I need people to give me work. I’m not building mausoleums. Do you suppose I should need them in some other way? In a closer more personal way?” (Plume Edition, 1994. Page 158)
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| DefCon 512 June 2013 |
“Why are you a good architect? Because you have certain standards of what is good, and they are your own, an d you stand by them. I want a good hotel, and I have certain standards of what is good, and they’re my own, and you’re the one who can give me what I want. I’m doing—on my side of it—just what you’re doing when you design a building. Do you think that integrity is the monopoly of the artist? And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor’s pocket? No, it’s not as easy as that. If that were all, I’d say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren’t. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea. That presupposes the ability to think. Thinking is something that one doesn’t borrow or pawn. And yet, if I were asked to chose a symbol for humanity as we know it, I wouldn’t choose a cross nor an eagle nor a lion and unicorn. I’d choose three gilded balls.” – Kent Lansing. (Plume Ed., 1994. Page 321)
“I love doing it. Every building is like a person. Single and unrepeatable.”
(Plume Edition, 1994. Page 480)
“From different states, from unexpected parts of the country, calls had come for him: private homes, small office buildings, modest shops. … The story of every commission he received was the same: “I was in New York and I liked the Enright House.” “I saw the Cord Building.” “I saw a picture of the temple they tore down.” It was if an underground stream flowed through the country and broke out in sudden springs that shot to the surface at random, in unpredictable places. They were small, inexpensive jobs—but he was kept working.” (Plume Edition, 1994. Page 533)
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Austin Astronomical Society
13 October 2023 |
“Three quarters of them don’t know what it’s all about, but they’ve heard the other one-quarter fighting over your name and now they feel they must pronounce it with respect. Of the fighting quarter, four-tenths are those who hate you, three-tenths are who feel they must have an opinion in any controversy, two-tenths are those who play safe and herald any new ‘discovery,’ and one-tenth are those who understand.” (Plume Edition, 1994. Page 536)
“One cannot collaborate on one’s own job. I can co-operate, if that’s what they call it, with the workers who erect my buildings. But I can’t help them to lay bricks and they can’t help me to design the house.” (Plume Edition, 1994. Page 569)
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American Numismatic Association
Rosemont (Chicago) 2019 |
“Roark got up, reached out, and tore a thick branch off a tree, held it in both hands, one fist closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tenses against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. “Now I can make what I want out of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That’s the meaning of life. … Your work.” He tossed the branch aside. “The material the earth offers you and what you make of it.” (Plume Edition, 1994. Page 577)
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American Numismatic Association
Chicago Virtual 4 August 2020 |
“But first, I want you to think and tell me what made me give years to this work. Money? Fame? Charity? Altruism?... You see, I’m never concerned with my clients, only with their architectural requirements. I consider these as part of my building’s theme and problem, as my building’s material—just as I consider bricks and steel. Bricks and steel are not my motive. Neither are the clients. Both are only the means of my work. Peter, before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action …” (Plume Edition, 1994. Page 604)
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