Atlas Shrugged
March 8, 2003

Here are a few excerpts from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand that I want to share with you (and of course there will be more as I find them):

�'Mr. Rearden,' said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, 'if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders--what would you tell him to do?'

'I...don't know. What...could he do? What would you tell him?�

�To shrug.��

��It's going to be built. And it's going to be called the John Galt Line.�

�What?!� It was an actual scream; she chuckled derisively. �The John Galt Line.�

�Dagny, in heaven's name, why?�

�Don't you like it?�

�How did you happen to choose that?�

�It sounds better than Mr. Nemo or Mr. Zero, doesn't it?�

�Dagny, why that?�

�Because it frightens you.�

�What do you think it stands for?�

�The impossible. The unattainable. And you're all afraid of my Line just as you're afraid of that name.�

He [Francisco] started laughing. He laughed, not looking at her, and she felt strangely certain that he had forgotten her, that he was far away, that he was laughing--in furious gaiety and bitterness--at something in which she had no part.

When he turned to her, he said earnestly, �Dagny, I wouldn't, if I were you.�

She shrugged. �Jim didn't like it, either.�

�What do you like about it?�

�I hate it! I hate the doom you're all waiting for, the giving up, and that senseless question that always sounds like a cry for help. I'm sick of hearing pleas for John Galt. I'm going to fight him.�

He said quietly, �You are.�

�I'm going to build a railroad line for him. Let him come and claim it!�

He smiled sadly and nodded: �He will.��

�Flung from side to side, like a battered pendulum, clinging to the wheel, half in her seat, half on her knees, she fought to pull the ship into a glide, for an attempt to make a belly-landing, while the green ground was whirling about her, sweeping above her, then below, its spiral coils coming closer. Her arms pulling at the wheel, with no chance to know whether she could succeed, with her space and time running out--she felt, in a flash of its full, violent purity, that special sense of existence which had always been hers. In a moment's consecration to her love--to her rebellious denial of diasaster, to her love of life and of the matchless value that was herself--she felt the fiercely proud certainty that she would survive.

And in answer to the earth that flew to meet her, she heard in her mind, as her mockery at fate, as her cry of defiance, the words of the sentence she hated--the words of defeat, of despair and of a plea for help:

�Oh hell! Who is John Galt?��

*This quote below is the one that pertains to the thoughts in �The Fountainhead�. I know it's long, but this is one of my absolute favorite scenes:

It was only a moment. Francisco [the owner of d�Anconia copper, one of the most trusted, safest, and influential companies in the Stock Market] turned to him, his face normal, and said very quietly, �I've changed my mind, Mr. Rearden. I'm glad that you came to this party. I want you to see this.�

Then, raising his voice, Francisco said suddenly, in the gay, loose, piercing tone of a man of complete irresponsibility, �You won't grant me that loan, Mr. Rearden? It puts me on a terrible spot. I must get the money�I must raise it tonight�I must raise it before the Stock Exchange opens in the morning, because otherwise��

He did not have to continue, because the little man with the mustache was clutching at his arm.

Rearden had never believed that a human body could chance dimensions within one�s sight, but he saw the man shrinking in weight, in posture, in form, as if the air were let out of his lumps, and what had been an arrogant ruler was suddenly a piece of scrap that could not be a threat to anyone.

�Is�is there something wrong, Senor d�Anconia? I mean, on�on the Stock Exchange?�

Francisco jerked his finger to his lips, with a frightened glace. �Keep quiet,� he whispered. �For God�s sake, keep quiet!�

The man was shaking. �Something�s�wrong?�

�You don�t happen to own any d�Anconia Copper stock, do you?� The man nodded, unable to speak. �Oh my, that�s too bad! Well, listen, I�ll tell you, if you give me your word of honor that you won�t repeat it to anyone. You don�t want to start a panic.�

�Word of honor�� gasped the man.

�What you�d better do is run to your stockbroker and sell as fast as you can�because things haven�t been going too well for d�Anconia Copper, I�m trying to raise some money, but if I don�t succeed, you�ll be lucky if you�ll have ten cents on your dollar tomorrow morning�oh my! I forgot that you can�t reach your stockbroker before tomorrow morning�well, it�s too bad, but��

The man was running across the room, pushing people out of his way, like a torpedo shot into the crowd.

�Watch,� said Francisco austerely, turning to Rearden.

The man was lost in the crowd, they could not see him, they could not tell to whom he was selling his secret or whether he had enough of his cunning left to make it a trade with those who held favors�but they saw the wake of his passage spreading through the room, the sudden cuts splitting the crowd, like the first few cracks, then like the accelerating branching that runs through a wall about to crumble, the streaks of emptiness slashed, not by a human touch, but by the impersonal breath of terror.

There were the voices abruptly choked off, the pools of silence, then sounds of a different nature: the rising, hysterical inflections of uselessly repeated questions, the unnatural whispers, a woman�s scream, the few spaced, forced giggles of those still trying to pretend that nothing was happening.

There were spots of immobility in the motion of the crowd, like spreading blotches of paralysis; there was a sudden stillness, as if a motor had been cut off; then came the frantic, jerking, purposeless, rudderless movement of objects bumping down a hill by the blind mercy of gravitation and of every rock they hit on the way. People were running out, running to telephones, running to one another, clutching or pushing the bodies around them at random. These men, the most powerful men in the country, those who held, unanswerable to any power, the power over every man�s food and every man�s enjoyment of his span of years on earth�these men had become a pile of rubble, clattering in the wind of panic, the rubble left of a structure when its key pillar has been cut.

James Taggart [one of the �crumbling� and powerful men, who deceitfully steals money, his explanation being that it is bad to want/have money and therefore, it should belong to everyone], his face indecent in its exposure of emotions which centuries had taught men to keep hidden, rushed up to Francisco and screamed, �Is it true?�

�Why, James,� said Francisco, smiling, �what�s the matter? Why do you seem to be upset? Money is the root of all evil�so I just got tired of being evil.��

Love,
Lemme