Roark Quotes & Sayings

When I think about everything that's happened since school started, well, I don't think the word 'normal' applies to any of it. Verbena is right - I'm way past normal. Only I've realized that when you move beyond normal, the road you're on doesn't necessarily take you to the land of the abnormal or the weird or the freakish. Instead you might find yourself in a place where people build Freedom School and have the courage to live large. It's a place where people don't worry too much when they get a little goat poop on their shoes. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

You're not even boasting about it."
"Should I?"
"You can't. You're too arrogant to boast. — Ayn Rand

Roark looked at him and understood. Roark inclined his head in agreement; he could acknowledge what Cameron had just declared to him only by a quiet glance as solemn as Cameron's. — Ayn Rand

They move past you and they wear hats and they carry bundles. But that's not the substance of them. The substance of them is hatred for any man who loves his work. That's the only kind they fear. I don't know why. You're opening yourself up, Roark, for each and every one of them."
"But I never notice the people in the streets. — Ayn Rand

The egotist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man - and he asks no other man to exist for him. — Ayn Rand

Don't help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don't work for my happiness, my brothers-show me yours-show me that it is possible-show me your achievement-and the knowledge will give me the courage for mine. Mallory (the young artist) to Roark in "The Fountainhead" — Ayn Rand

Tobin, my man, you are going to learn about chickens. And when you to learn about chickens, you will learn about life. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

What's really weird is my mom's clothes smell like her. I mean, her perfume, and so all day it's like m mom has been walking right beside me. Which, you have to admit, a pretty freaky feeling. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

For three years, ever since he had lived in Stanton, he had come here for his only relaxation, to swim, to rest, to think, to be alone and alive, whenever he could find one hour to spare, which had not been often. In his new freedom the first thing he had wanted to do was to come here, because he knew that he was coming for the last time. — Ayn Rand

Roark spoke quietly. He was the only man in the room who felt certain of his own words. — Ayn Rand

She found a dark satisfaction in pain - because that pain came from him. — Ayn Rand

At that moment, there was nothing in the entire damn world I wanted more than her. And it felt like there was nothing else I would ever wanted. It was insane and I'm taking it for the warning it was.
I need to stay away from her. — Elizabeth O'Roark

The crowd would have forgiven anything, except a man who could remain normal under the vibrations of its enormous collective sneer. — Ayn Rand

You know that I hate you, Roark. I hate you for what you are, for wanting you, for having to want you. I'm going to fight you-and I'm going to destroy you-and I tell you this as calmly as I told you that I'm a begging animal. I'm going to pray that you can't be destroyed-I tell you this, too-even though I believe in nothing and have nothing to pray to. But I will fight to block every step you take. I will fight to tear every chance you want away from you. I will hurt you through the only thing that can hurt you-through your work. I will fight to starve you, to strangle you on the things you won't be able to reach. I have done it to you to today-and that is why I shall sleep with you tonight. Part 2, Chapter 7, pg. 272-3 The Fountainhead — Ayn Rand

You gonna stand in my backyard and ignore me to my face? — Frances O'Roark Dowell

Roark looked at the clean white sheet before him, his fist closed tightly about the thin stem of a pencil. He put the pencil down, and picked it up again, his thumb running softly up and down the smooth shaft; he saw that the pencil was trembling. He put it down quickly, and he felt anger at himself for the weakness of allowing this job to mean so much to him, for the sudden knowledge of what the months of idleness behind him had really meant. His finger tips were pressed to the paper, as if the paper held them, as a surface charged with electricity will hold the flesh of a man who has brushed against it, hold and hurt. He tore his fingers off the paper. Then he went to work ... — Ayn Rand

I think everything I do has Howard Roark [hero of The Fountainhead] in it, you know, as much as anything. The person I write for is Howard Roark. — Neil Peart

I have to say, it felt good to be wanted, son. Felt real good. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

She knew that neither his clothes nor the years stood between her and the living intactness of that memory. — Ayn Rand

He was accustomed to hostility; this kind of benevolence was more offensive than hostility. He shrugged; he thought that he would be out of here soon and back in the simple, clean reality of his own office. — Ayn Rand

Your ego is the strictest judge.
-Howard Roark in his speech at his trial. — Ayn Rand

[Howard Roark] was asked for a statement, and he received a group of reporters in his office. He spoke without anger. He said:
'I can't tell anyone anything about my building. If I prepared a hash of words to stuff into other people's brains, it would be an insult to them and to me. But I am glad you came here. I do have something to say. I want to ask every man who is interested in this to go and see the building, to look at it and then to use words of his own mind, if he cares to speak.'
The Banner printed the interview as follows:
'Mr. Roark, who seems to be a publicity hound, received reporters with an air of swaggering insolence and stated that the public mind was hash. He did not choose to talk, but seemed well aware of the advertising angles of the situation. All he cared about, he explained, was to have his building seen by as many people as possible. — Ayn Rand

He raised his head and looked at her; she had not caught him noticing her approach; he looked up as if he expected her to be there, as if he knew she would be back. She saw the hint of a smile, more insulting than words. He sustained the insolence of looking straight at her, he would not move, he would not grant the concession of turning away - of acknowledging that he had no right to look at her in such manner. He had not merely taken that right, he was saying silently that she had given it to him. — Ayn Rand

Mr. Roark, I'm so sorry about - " she hesitated demurely " - about what happened this morning. — Ayn Rand

Stars. Trees breathe in starlight year after year, and it goes deep into their bones. So when you cut a tree open, you smell a hundred years' worth of light. Ancient starlight that took millions of years to reach earth. That's why trees smell so beautiful and old. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

You knew better than that. And it's such an old one to me. My antisocial stubbornness is so well-known that I didn't think anyone would waste time trying to tempt me again. — Ayn Rand

People turned to look at Howard Roark as he passed. Some remained staring after him with sudden resentment. They could give no reason for it: it was an instinct his presence awakened in most people. Howard Roark saw no one. For him, the streets were empty. He could have walked there naked without concern. — Ayn Rand

A man's spirit is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego. — Ayn Rand

He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. — Ayn Rand

Keating felt naked ... People were his protection against people. Roark had no sense of people. Others gave Keating a feeling of his own value. Roark gave him nothing. — Ayn Rand

I want to sleep with you. Now, tonight, and at any time you may care to call me. I want your naked body, your skin. your mouth, your hands ... - I want you like an animal ... or a whore. — Ayn Rand

And she thought, with a vicious thrill, of what these people would do if they read her mind in this moment; if they knew that she was thinking of a man in a quarry, thinking of his body with a sharp intimacy as one does not think of another's body but only of one's own. She smiled; the cold purity of her face prevented them from seeing the nature of that smile. — Ayn Rand

So you see, Roark though it is to be a religious edifice, it is also more than that. you notice that we call it the temple of the human spirit. We want to capture- in stone, as others capture in music- not some narrow creed, but the essence of all religion. and what is the essence of religion? The great aspiration of the human spirit toward the highest, the noblest, the best. the great life giving force of the universe. The heroic human spirit. — Ayn Rand

He was a big talker, someone who liked words for words' sake, the sound of them, the way you can pile them up in your mouth and make a poem if you speill them out the right way.
p92 — Frances O'Roark Dowell

Howard Roark built a temple to the human spirit. He saw man as strong, proud, clean, wise and fearless. He saw man as a heroic being. And he built a temple to that. A temple is a place where man is to experience exaltation. He thought that exaltation comes from the consciousness of being guiltless, of seeing the truth and achieving it, of living up to one's highest possibility, of knowing no shame and having no cause for shame, of being able to stand naked in full sunlight. He thought that exaltation means joy and that joy is man's birthright. He tho ... ught that a place built as a setting for man is a sacred place. That is what Howard Roark thought of man and of exaltation. — Ayn Rand

4. If you do not give your chickens enough space, light, air, and walking-around room, they will eat one another. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways - by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary. — Ayn Rand

Roark threw his head up once, for a flash of a second, to look at Heller across the table. It was all the introduction they needed; it was like a handshake. — Ayn Rand

You're the most egotistical and the kindest man I know. And that doesn't make sense."
"Maybe the concepts don't make sense. Maybe they don't mean what people have been taught to think they mean. — Ayn Rand

She came unannounced, certain of finding him there and alone. In his room, there was no necessity to spare, lie, agree and erase herself out of being. Here she was free to resist, to see her resistance welcomed by an adversary too strong to fear a contest, strong enough to need it; she found a will granting her the recognition of her own entity, untouched and not to be touched except in clean battle, to win or to be defeated, but to be preserved in victory or defeat, not ground into the meaningless pulp of the impersonal. — Ayn Rand

She knew that she could not move until he permitted her to.
She saw his mouth and the silent contempt in the shape of his mouth; the planes of his gaunt, hollow cheeks; the cold, pure brilliance of the eyes that had no trace of pity. She knew it was the most beautiful face she would ever see, because it was the abstraction of strength made visible. — Ayn Rand

He does not achieve through other men nor for other men, he achieves through and for himself alone, then offers it to others. — Ayn Rand

The best is a matter of standards - and I set my own standards. — Ayn Rand

Do you have to be quite so fanatical and selfless about it?"

"What?" Roark asked, incredulously.

"Fanatical and selfless!"

Roark smiled. He looked down at his drawings. His elbowed moved, pressing them to his body.

He said "That was the most selfish thing you've ever seen a man do. — Ayn Rand

I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need. — Ayn Rand

What filled the rooms of Grete's cottage so decidedly were woven baskets and wooden boxes and clay pots glazed in red and blue, each with its own mishmash of this and that. Roots and leaves still redolent of dirt. Balls of scratchy wool-purple twining into pink easing into periwinkle fading into gray. At least three boxes held squares and strips of fabric, all colors, and eight pots overflowed with apples.
The walls were lined with shelves, the shelves were lined with books. Wordless spines peered out. As soon as Isabelle saw them, she itched to open it up and read it from cover to cover. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. — Ayn Rand

Dream girl? Ain't such a thing. You walk, you talk, you got mammary glands, well, that's gonna do it right there for most guys. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

You liked watching Lucrezia and her consort," Roark observed, ignoring his comment and switching the subject, taking Nix's earlobe between his white teeth and nipping it, hard. He licked at the blood. "The cruel face of their love. It turned you on. Hard. — Jae T. Jaggart

In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone ... Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner. — Ayn Rand

Toohey: "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."
Roark: "But I don't think of you. — Ayn Rand

Compassion is a wonderful thing. It's what one feels when one looks at a squashed caterpillar. An elevating experience. One can let oneself go and spread
you know, like taking a girdle off. You don't have to hold your stomach, your heart or your spirit up
when you feel compassion. All you have to do is look down. It's much easier. When you look up, you get a pain in the neck. Compassion is the greatest virtue. It justifies suffering. There's got to be suffering in the world, else how would we be virtuous and feel compassion? ... Oh, it has an antithesis
but such a hard, demanding one ... Admiration, Mrs. Jones, admiration. But that takes more than a girdle ... So I say that anyone for whom we can't feel sorry is a vicious person. Like Howard Roark. — Ayn Rand

Wynand asked: "Howard, have you ever been in love?" Roark turned to look straight at him and answer quietly: "I still am." "But when you walk through a building, what you feel is greater than that?" "Much greater, Gail. — Ayn Rand

Planters clung to their proslavery beliefs even when there were facts to the contrary because the stakes involved in abandoning them were too high. They could not reject or even compromise their central myths, for to do so would mean condemning a whole culture as a lie...Ideologies, once constructed, have lives of their own. Any evidence which might have contradicted the planters' basic beliefs faced an a priori denial. — James L. Roark

Especially appealing to the planter elite was the conservatism of the American Revolution. Indeed, according to their reading, it had been so conservative that it hardly deserved the title of revolution at all. The goal had been simple political independence, and the issue of home rule had not expanded to include the dangerous question of who should rule at home. The men who made the revolution had maintained control in victory. — James L. Roark

What you feel in the presence of a thing you admire is just one word - 'Yes.' The affirmation, the acceptance, the sign of admittance. — Ayn Rand

Granny sat down on the step and stared off into the trees. That girl right there, she was my only child. I have lost two husbands, one by death, the other by divorce, and I have lost my parents and my brothers and sisters. But nothing ever pierced me to the core like that little girl's dying. I know it wasn't your daddy's fault. I know I messed up by filling a report to Social Services. Is that what you want to here? Is that what it takes for you not to be mad at me? — Frances O'Roark Dowell

She had nothing to hide from him, nothing to keep unstated, everything was granted, answered, found. — Ayn Rand

And, after all, you've got to live."
"Not that way," said Roark. — Ayn Rand

Your witness," the attorney snapped to Roark. "No questions," said Roark. Dominique left the stand. The attorney bowed to the bench and said: "The plaintiff rests." The judge turned to Roark and made a vague gesture, inviting him to proceed. Roark got up and walked to the bench, the brown envelope in hand. He took out of the envelope ten photographs of the Stoddard Temple and laid them on the judge's desk. He said: "The defense rests. — Ayn Rand

I hate incompetence. I think it's probably the only thing I do hate. But it didn't make me want to rule people. Nor to teach them anything. It made me want to do my own work in my own way and let myself be torn to pieces if necessary. — Ayn Rand

Roark stood before them as each man stands in the innocence of his own mind. But Roark stood like that before a hostile crowd - and they knew suddenly that no hatred was possible to him. — Ayn Rand

We have met once," she said, "at the Holcombes. If Mr. Roark remembers. — Ayn Rand

For people who enjoyed their own presence well enough and sought only a place where they would be left free to enjoy it. — Ayn Rand

It was strange to be conscious of another person's existence, to feel it as a close, urgent necessity; a necessity without qualifications, neither pleasant nor painful, merely final like an ultimatum. It was important to know that she existed in the world; it was important to think of her, of how she had awakened this morning, of how she moved, with her body still his, now his forever, of what she thought. — Ayn Rand

She saw the man below looking at her, she saw the insolent hint of amusement tell her that he knew she did not want him to look at her now. She turned her head away. — Ayn Rand

My dad, who my mom always refers to as DH for Darling Husband, was protrayed as a 'let's look on the bright side of things' kind of guy, the pillar my everbumbling mother leans on in times of distress. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

He stood looking up at her; it was not a glance, but an act of ownership. She thought she must let her face give him the answer he deserved. But she was looking, instead, at the stone dust on his burned arms, the wet shirt clinging to his ribs, the lines of his long legs. She was thinking of those statues of men she had always sought; she was wondering what he would look like naked. She saw him looking at her as if he knew that. — Ayn Rand

Quit it already. I'm pretty enough as it is. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

What in hell are you really made of, Howard? After all, it's only a building. It's not the combination of holy sacrament, Indian torture, and sexual ecstasy that you seem to make of it."
"Isn't it? — Ayn Rand

Rules?" said Roark. "Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it's made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn't borrow pieces of his body. A building doesn't borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway to express it. — Ayn Rand

She wondered why she had never noticed that she did not know his name and why she had never asked him. Perhaps because she had known everything she had to know about him from that first glance. — Ayn Rand

His face was like a law of nature - a thing one could not question, alter or implore. It had high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint. — Ayn Rand

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." "But I don't think of you." Toohey — Ayn Rand

How did you know what's been killing me? Slowly, for years, driving me to hate people when I don't want to hate ... Have you felt it, too? Have you seen how your best friends love everything about you
except the things that count? And your most important is nothing to them, nothing, not even a sound they can recognize. You mean, you want to hear? You want to know what I do and why I do it, you want to know what I think? It's not boring to you? It's important? — Ayn Rand

HOWARD ROARK LAUGHED. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. — Ayn Rand

"You were not born to be a second-hander." Howard Roark to Gail Wynand in "The Fountainhead" — Ayn Rand

They mistrust you because they think you'll be the death of me," Roark said softly. "Tell me, Nix. Will you? — Jae T. Jaggart

Most people 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. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life. If he doesn't build, when he has the means, it's because his life has not been what he wanted. — Ayn Rand

Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic - and only of addition at that? — Ayn Rand

A house can have integrity, just like a person,' said Roark, 'and just as seldom. — Ayn Rand

Roark walked now to these drawings; they were the first things to be packed. — Ayn Rand

And isn't that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison. — Ayn Rand

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone. — Ayn Rand

But I don't think of you.

(Howard Roark) — Ayn Rand

Every living thing is integrated. Do you know what that means? Whole, pure, complete, unbroken. Do you know what constitutes an integrating principle? A thought. The one thought, the single thought that created the thing and every part of it. The thought which no one can change or touch. — Ayn Rand

He sat looking at her. She waited to see the derisive smile, but it did not come. The smile seemed implicit in the room itself, in her standing there, halfway across that room. — Ayn Rand

I don't think a man can hurt another, not in any important way. Neither hurt him nor help him. I have really nothing to forgive you. — Ayn Rand

P.61 He [Roark] was usually disliked, from the first sight of his face, anywhere he went. His face was closed like the door of a safety vault; things locked in safety vaults are valuable; men did not care to feel that. He was a cold, disquieting presence in the room; his presence had a strange quality: it made itself felt and yet it made them feel that he was not there; or perhaps that he was and they weren't. — Ayn Rand

Catholic missionaries labored earnestly to convert indians. They fervently believed that God expected them to save the Indians' souls by convincing them to abandon their old sinful beliefs and to embrace the one true Christian faith. But after baptizing tens of thousands of Indians, the missionaries learned that many Indians continued to worship their own gods. Most priests came to believe that the Indians were lesser beings inherently incapable of fully understanding Christianity. — James L. Roark

What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egotists. You don't think through another's brain and you don't work through another's hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life. — Ayn Rand

He was usually disliked, from the first sight of his face, anywhere he went. His face was closed like the door of a safety vault; things locked in safety vaults are valuable; men did not care to feel that. — Ayn Rand

The crowd had stared at him and given up angrily, finding no satisfaction. He did not look crushed and he did not look defiant. He looked impersonal and calm. He was not like a public figure in a public place; he was like a man alone in his own room, listening to the radio. — Ayn Rand

That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures - because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer - because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage. — Ayn Rand

Howard Roark stood as a role model for me - as exactly the way I already was living. Even at that tender age [18] I already felt that. And it was intuitive or instinctive or inbred stubbornness or whatever; but I had already made those choices and suffered for them. — Neil Peart

You can't expect a person to love an animal they might see decapitated at any minute. It ain't realistic, I told Miss Blue, who was gulping down her worm. She looked up at me like it shocked her to learn that some chickens got treated that way. — Frances O'Roark Dowell

I'll listen if you want me to ... But I think I should tell you now that nothing you can say will make any difference. If you don't mind that, I don't mind listening. — Ayn Rand

He looked at Roark and saw the calmest, kindest face - a face without a hint of pity. It did not look like the countenance of men who watch the agony of another with a secret pleasure, uplifted by the sight of a beggar who needs their compassion; it did not bear the cast of the hungry soul that feeds upon another's humiliation. — Ayn Rand

All that which proceeds from man's independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man's dependence upon men is evil. — Ayn Rand

Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burnt at the stake he'd taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived and he lifted darkness from the face of the Earth. — Ayn Rand