The spirit of Atlas Shrugged is evident even in Ayn Rand’s comments on the book. My list of favourite lines starts with an excerpt from the author’s notes. “To all the readers who discovered The Fountainhead and asked me many questions about the wider application of its ideas, I want to say I am answering these questions in the present novel and that The Fountainhead was only an overture to Atlas Shrugged.” Terming a not-so-small book an “overture” powerfully conveys the hubris innate in Rand’s objectivism. And yet, there is no offence meant to anyone in her celebration of humanity. This could be why Rand has die-hard fans; and also why she has staunch naysayers.

Here go the quotes:

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“Dagny, how many years is it going to take you to learn to be yourself?”

“If any part of your uncertainty,” said Galt, “is a conflict between your heart and your mind—follow your mind.”

“Dagny, we can never lose the things we live for. We may have to change their form at times, if we’ve made an error, but the purpose remains the same and the forms are ours to make.”

Rand’s philosophy is perhaps possible only in an ‘Atlantis’, far removed from the real world inhabited by imperfect beings who probably don’t even understand objectivism. That said, it is to Rand’s credit no other philosopher would dare to use a turn of phrase such as “radiant selfishness”!