Some quotes from The Fountainhead that are insane September 21, 2006
Posted by sdpurtill in Books.trackback
I am on the home stretch of reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It’s been the most amazing book I’ve ever read in my life. About halfway through the book, I realized how many enlightening quotes the book was filled with, so I tried something new: I put a bunch of post-its inside the cover, and everytime I found a quote I liked, I’d slap a post-it on it. And that’s how I’ve come up with these quotes…
I will try to give the context for each quote, but reading the book is by far the best way to grasp the full meaning.
Gail Wynand, one of the richest man in NYC, talking to Dominique (his wife) about love
“Why have you been staring at me ever since we met? Because I’m not the Gail Wynand you’d heard about. You see, I love you. And love is exception-making. If you were in love you’d want to be broken, trampled, ordered, dominated, because that’s the impossible, in the inconceivable for you in your relations with people. That would be the one gift, the great exception you’d want to offer the man you loved. But it wouldn’t be easy for you.”
Alvah Scarret is one of the heads of Gail Wynand’s huge newspaper, The Banner, and his response to Wynand after Wynand fires one of the paper’s top writers
Scarret protested in panic: “Gail, you can’t fire Sally! Not Sally!“
“When I can’t fire anyone I wish on my paper, I’ll close it and blow up the God-damn building,” said Wynand calmly.
Peter Keating is basically the opposite of the hero, Howard Roark. He speaks of him here.
“I often think that he’s the only one of us who’s achieved immortality. I don’t mean in the sense of fame and I don’t mean that he won’t die some day. But he’s living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they’re not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict–and they call it growth. At the end there’s nothing left, nothing unrevered or unbetrayed; as if there had never been any entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment? But Howard–one can imagine him existing forever.”
Dominique talking to Wynand on his yacht
[Dominique] “I used to travel a great deal. I always felt just like that [hating to be at a destination]. I’ve been told it’s because I’m a hater of mankind.”
“You’re not foolish enough to believe that, are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Surely you’ve seen through that particular stupidity. I mean the one that claims the pig is the symbol of love for humanity–the creature that accepts anything. As a matter of fact, the person who loves everybody and feels at home everywhere is the true hater of mankind. He expects nothing of men, so no form of depravity can outrage him.”
“You mean the person whosays that there’s some good in the worst of us?”
“I mean the person whohas the filthy insolence to claim that he loves equally the man who made that statue of you and the manwho makes a Mickey Mouse balloonto sell on street corners. I mean the person who loves the men who prefer the Mickey Mouse to you statue–and there are many of that kind. I mean the person who loves Joan of Arc and the salesgirls in dress shops on Broadway–with equal fervor. I mean the person who loves your beauty and the women he sees in a subway–the kind that can’t cross their knees and show flesh hanging publicly over their garters–with the same sense of exaltation. I mean the person who loves the clean, steady, unfrightened eyes of man looking through a telescope and the white stare of an imbecile–equally. I mean quite a large, generous, magnanimous company. Is it you who hate mankind, Mrs. Keating?”
Wynand talking to Dominique about love, again
“Or that love is pity.”
“Oh, keep still. It’s bad enough to hear things like that. To hear them from you is revolting–even as a joke.”
“What’s your answer?”
“That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. BUt they don’t know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who’ve never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you’ve felt what it means to love as you and I know it–the total passion for the total height–you’re incapable of anything less.”
Peter Keating sitting by the fire realizing he isn’t happy
He thought of how convincingly he could describe this scene to friends and make them envy the fullness of his contentment. Why oculdn’t he convince himself? He had everything he’d ever wanted. He had wanted superiority–and for the last year he had been the undisputed leader of his profession. He had wanted fame–and he had five thick albums of clippings. He had wanted wealth–and he had enough to insure luxury for the rest of his life. He had everything anyone ever wanted. How many people struggled and suffered to achieve what he had achieved? How many dreamed and bled and died for this, without reaching it? “Peter Keating is the luckiest fellow on earth.” How often had he heard that?
And I saved the best for last (if you had the endurance to read this far…). It’s a scene where Dominique is speaking to Howard Roark
“Roark, before I met you, I had always been afraid of seeing someone like you, because I knew that I’d also have to see what I saw on the witness stand and I’d have to do what I did in that courtroom. I hated doing it, because it was an insult to you to defend you–and it was an insult to myself that you had to be defended… Roark, I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: their halway, the almost, the just-about, the in-between. They have their justifications. I don’t know. I don’t care to inquire. I know that it is the one thing not given me to understand. When I think of what you are, I can’t accept any reality except a world of your kind. Or at least a world in which you have a fighting chance and a fight on your own terms. That does not exist. And I can’t live life torn between that which exists–and you. It would mean to struggle against things and men who don’t deserve to be your opponents. Your fight, using their methods–and that’s too horrible a desecration. It would mean doing for you what I dod for Peter Keating: lie, flatter, evade, compromise, pander to every ineptitude–in order to beg of them a chance for you, beg them to let you live, to let you function, to beg them, Roark, not to laugh at them, but to tremble because they hold the power to hurt you. Am I too weak because I can’t do this? I don’t know which is the greater strength: to accept all this for you–or to love you so much that the rest is beyond acceptance. I don’t know. I love you too much.”
Have you read it ? What’s your favorite quote(s) ? And out of all these, which one made you think the most ?
First off let me say that I am really impressed with how much you have taken from this book. Wrapping myself around the idea that man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress is something that would be impossible for me to do at your age. The quote that sticks out to me is the one where Dominique is talking to Wynand on his yacht. There is some great dialogue about the generalization of love and mankind in there. I linked my blog so you can check it out.
hey. i’ve read the fountainhead a few months ago and i have to say that it is probably one of the best books i’ve ever read… there are SO many great quotes in that book its impossible to list them all.
i thot it was amazing how each character had such a unique way of looking at life and a different approach to dealing with the people and the society around them. Wynand, Dominique, and Howard all expressed there hatred of the society in different ways: Dominique mocked it, Wynand set out to destroy it, and Howard simply ignored it. Then there was keating who destroyed himself from the very beginning by relying on others in order to achieve success and therefore happiness. he got the success and yet in the end he still found himself constantly feeling envious of Howard- a man who compared to him had nothing.
as for toohey, he was also a parasite, but unlike keating he wasnt stupid. he knew exactly what he was doing and he enjoyed doing it. he enjoyed destroying greatness. he enjoyed the power he knew he had to manipulate anyone - or almost anyone. which reminds me of some of my favorite quotes in the book:
1- when legendary architect Henry Cameron warns Howard Roark of the “monster” he will be forced to face, he says:- “It’s a challenge in the face of something so vast and so dark, that all the pain on earth -and do you know how much suffering there is on earth? – all the pain comes from that thing you are going to face. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know why it should be unleashed against you. I know only that it will be… You’re on your way into hell, Howard.”
2- pg. 331, speaking to Howard Roark:- “That a great many men are poor fools who can’t see the best - that’s nothing. One can’t get angry at that. But do you understand about the men who see it and don’t want it?”
3- Toohey speaking to Dominique: “That’s the trouble with victims - they don’t even know they’re victims, which is as it should be, but it does become monotonous and take half the fun away. You’re such a rare treat - a victim who can appreciate the artistry of its own execution…”
4- When Toohey urges Roark to say what he thinks of him, Toohey presses the issue, saying: “Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us.” and Roark replies, “But I don’t think of you.”
5- “Most people,” Roark says,”build as they live — as a matter of routine and senseless accident. But a few understand that building is a great symbol. We live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form.”
6- Last but definitely not least is part of Dominique’s speech in court, she says: “I am proving your case for you. I am proving why you must go with Ellsworth Toohey, as you will anyway. The Stoddard Temple must be destroyed. Not to save men from it, but to save it from men. What’s the difference, however? Mr. Stoddard wins… Let us destroy, but don’t let us pretend that we are committing an act of virtue. Let us say that we are moles and we object to mountain peaks… I realize fully that at this moment I am as futile as Howard Roark. This is my Stoddard Temple - my first and my last.”
those arent even a small fraction of the great quotes there are in that book - i didnt add any of the philosophical quotes in there, mostly just the quotes relating to the story and its characters. thats one of the things i loved most about the book, tho, that philosophy aside, it was still a great story and very well told.
one of the moments in the book that stands out most in my mind, though, and that really touched me was the part i think at the very beginning of part 4 where there’s this kid who wants to be an architect or artist or something, i dont remember, but anyway he’s riding his bike through the forest looking for some sort of inspiration, and then he comes across some hills where Roark had just completed one of his latest works, and he’s so astounded by what he sees, and he asks Roark, who’s standing there, who made those great buildings, and Roark says that it was him… then the boy smiles and thanks him and rides off into the sunset knowing that that one moment, that one sight, had now filled him with enough strength and inspiration to last him the rest of his life… and you just like know at that moment that that boy was going to grow up to have to face a life time of hardship, to go thru the same hell howard had to go through, but you still smile because for some reason deep down, you just know he’s gonna be ok, and that in the end, he’s going to beat the world… that one memory alone inpired me and made me love the book more than ever…
He was a very young man. He had just graduated from college — in this spring of the year 1935 — and he wanted to decide whether life was worth living. He did not know that this was the question in his mind. He did not think of dying. He thought only that he wished to find joy and reason and meaning in life — and that none had been offered to him anywhere.
He had not liked the things taught to him in college. He had been taught a great deal about social responsibility, about a life of service and self-sacrifice. Everybody had said it was beautiful and inspiring. Only he had not felt inspired. He had felt nothing at all.
I belive that is the beggning of the quote you are refering to. I a well have read The Fountainhead and am a huge fan of Objectivism. There are many small quotes which stand out to me, but I feel the most important scene is the one on the yauht. Gail and Roark are out to sea together and Roark givs a small speech to Gail, about secondhanders. Here is the famous quote of ‘I would die for you, but I would never live for you’. Simply amazing.
I came across this blog searching for Fountainhead quotes. It reminded me of a quote I loved, actually it is the opening sentence. “Howard Roark laughed.” What a way to open one of the greatest books ever written. I think it shows everything Howard represents in the simplest of terms.
I am a big time fan of this book. have read it so many times but everytime it throws up something new for me to appreciate.
My favourite quote to this day remains when Roark says - To say I Love one must first know how to say ‘I’ …..It has me bowled everytime i read it
“But I don’t think of you.”
Amazing.
hey thanks
i was looking for a specific quote for an essay i was writing, and have already brought the book back to the library (overdue)…
reading all this stuff makes me realize i do want to read the second half of the book and remember how (surprisingly) good that book was. i just sort of got stuck at the part where dominique was married to keating
“There is nothing and he creates nothingness.”
-Gordon L. Prescott
(Part II, Ellsworth M. Toohey)
This is funny, because I did the same thing with The Fountainhead. My copy has those little flag post-it’s practically every 20 pages.
When Wynand is defending his papers (and I’m paraphrasing because the book isn’t in front of me):
“It is not up to me to provide people with self-respect which they do not have.”
i stumbled across this page somehow…i am nearly finished with it for the first time and i can say very naturally that this is one of the most incredible books i have ever read, though i’ve encountered few people who regard it with anything other than indifference or contempt. (i’m a senior in highschool). strange to think of the same thing occuring in a different time and place, as i write this nearly a year after you posted.
and my favorite part- i read the exchange between dominique and roark at the building site in clayton, and was left with the sensation, simply because of what each of them and their actions represent, that it was the most intensely passionate love scene i have ever encountered
the fountaihead is without a doubt the best book i have ever read because of the plot development. i love this book and encourage everyone to read it
I was always a big fan of this quote at the end of chapter 5, ““He walked to a window and stood looking up at the sky. His head thrown back, he felt the pull of his throat muscles and he wondered whether the peculiar solemnity of looking at the sky comes, not from what one contemplates, but from that uplift of one’s head””
My copy of the book has green highlighter marks all over it. its an amazing book, by and amazing author.
Ayn Rand is just great…i am her die hard fan …i am stunned with her way of thinking,just too inspiring…Atlas shrugged is my Bible,and she a god for me………
Nice page.
Minor correction, though. The quote listed above which begins, ““I often think that he’s the only one of us who’s achieved immortality.” was not spoken by Keating, but by Steven Mallory.
thorn
Gail is driving to the house, and thinks to himself:
“No, he thought, I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered- and that I loved it, THAT is the unanswered in my life. But I loved it.”
Still blown away by the intensity of this quote…
Also, the last interaction between Peter and Katie was so moving and heartwrenching… Greatest book of all time!
hey i don’t know you, but i’m glad you’re reading ayn rand! it’s a fabulous book, yes? much too underrated!
“a house can have integrity, just like a person,” said Roark, “and just as seldom.”
I dont have the book in front of me.. But I simply loved the ending speach.. The whole idea of individualism vs collectivism.. and the idea of selflessness vs selfishness..
Some of my favorite incidents..
1. When Roark is summoned by the dean.. And dean asks him to offer an apology.. And Roark refuses.. I dont remember the words, but tells the dean something on the lines that he can not teach anything more to him..
2. When Peter Keating wins the Kosmo-Slotnick building competition based on Roark’s drawings.. And offers a meagre sum to Roark for helping him.. And Roark returns it saying its a bribe from him so that Perer does not tell anyone Roark designed that building..
3. When Peter comes to Roark again for the final building for the poor people, after having lost all in life.. And he asks Roark to design it.. And asks what price Roark will take.. the whole incident is amazing.. so apt ..
4. Roark’s final speech in the courtroom.. about the idea of selflessness and all..
Ethical egoism vs. collectivism… god i love philosophy.
Does anyone know any other books, of another author that could be equally as inspiring and enjoyment to read? I’m so sick of wasting my time with mediocre, I need more greatness. I need another great author.
[...] more spectacular quotes, check out Sam’s page. digg_url = [...]
Lauren. Read Franny & Zooey, the Dark Tower series (it may seem beneath you in name, but not in content), maybe Conrad’s H.O.D., and most things by christopher hitchens.
Equally inspiring as this book? I’ve not read one, though great authors are everywhere.
No, I AM HER DIE HARD FAN!!!
Suvine.com
I am not sure whether anyone has already pointed to this. But the third quote you have put , about Change was not talked by Peter Keating , but Steven Mallory, the Sculptor. Please change it!
[...] are a lot of sites out there that have more quotes from the book. This entry was written by Isaac and [...]
“That’s the sort of thing I want you to understand, To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I ask you to keep your soul, would you understand why that is much harder.” -Pg.577 The Fountainhead
[...] More memorable quotes from the fountainhead are available here and here. [...]
Wynand talking to Dominique about love, again
“Or that love is pity.”
“Oh, keep still. It’s bad enough to hear things like that. To hear them from you is revolting–even as a joke.”
“What’s your answer?”…
Can anybody tell me what page this quote is from? It would mean a great deal to me. Thank you.
I’m suprised this one wasn’t listed.
“Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest memories are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing.”
Also:
“I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom. To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”
Those are definately my favorite.
The Fountainhead is an amazing book. I’m now reading Atlas Shrugged which is great so far.
This was originally posted a long time ago, but i stumbled upon this page and just had to add one of my favorite quotes. I have it tacked up on the corkboard next to my desk at work to always remind me the essence of what Objectivism is, and how much i despise the thinking of people like Peter Keating. I don’t have the book in front of me, so i apologize for no page number.
“Peter Keating had never felt the need to formulate abstract convictions. But he had a working substitute. ‘A thing is not high if one can reach it; it is not great if one can reason about it; it is not deep if one can see its bottom’ - this had always been his credo, unstated and unquestioned. This spared him any attempt to reach, reason, or see; and it cast a nice reflection of scorn on those who made the attempt.”
Brilliant summary of Philistinism
i’m about halfway through the fountanhead right now, and i totally agree that it is one of the best books i have ever read, by far.
it makes me happy to know so many other people enjoy the book. i had never even heard of it until i ran across it in borders one day.
For all of those who have read The Fountainhead, I suggest you read Atlas Shrugged as well. It’s just as amazing, maybe even more amazing, than The Fountainhead. It’s really well written and has eye-opening passages. One of my favorite parts is this speech about money that one of the characters give, it’s fantastic. I never thought of money the way Ayn Rand talks about it. I also like Roarke’s speech at the end of The Fountainhead.
“and now, to cure a world perishing from selflessness, we are asked to destroy the self.”
-howard roark
You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated.