“That is normal...To be afraid. Do not let anyone tell you any different. No one can ever say that what you feel is right or wrong, or pointless or unworthy of your time. That is a truth for you to decide. Ignorance is bliss, but there comes a time when you must open your eyes and face the truth—when you must be honest with yourself.”
“There are only two kinds of people who can drain your energy: those you love, and those you fear. In both instances it is you who let them in. They did not force their way into your aura, or pry their way into your reality experience.”
“He felt he could not be honest without disappointing everybody he loved.”
“Don’t be discouraged by life’s difficulties. With hope and determination, you can triumph over any difficulties.”
“The man that wars with and judges others is eternally lost. The man that wars with and judges himself is eternally found.”
“Dagny, he said, looking at the city as it moved past their taxi window, think of the first man who thought of making a steel girder. He knew what he saw, what he thought and what he wanted. He did not say, It seems to me, and he did not take orders from those who say, In my opinion.”
“Conquering fear didn’t mean not being afraid, it meant being afraid of something and doing it anyway. It meant saying no to fear-no you can’t rule me, no you can’t hold me back, no you can’t keep me from the things I want the most.”
“Why do we want other people to like us, even if we don t really care about them all that much?”
“You have to learn to recognize your own depths.”
“One day I realized, I am what I m looking for. The love I ve been searching the world for. When I devoutly love myself it s fulfilling, and it attracts others. They fight to love me twice as much.”
“Meredith immersed herself in the novels. For some reason, fiction hit on the meaning of life so much more concisely than real life itself did.”
“First of all I express sincerity. There s also that sense of humor, by which people sometimes learn to laugh about themselves. I mean, the situation is so serious that the people could go crazy because of it. They need to smile and realize how ridiculous everything is. A race without a sense of humor is in bad shape. A race needs clowns. In earlier days people knew that. Kings always had a court jester around. In that way he was always reminded how ridiculous things are. I believe that nations too should have jesters, in the congress, near the president, everywhere.....You could call me the jester of the Creator. The whole world, all the disease and misery, it s all ridiculous.”
“If you have a fight with yourself, who can win?”
“The notion of the perfect time is more than myth. It s the ultimate self-delusion.”
“I m extra-good at wanting things. I want things until I feel sort of sick about them. I want enough for two normal people, at least.”
“There s not a lot to do when you don t want to do anything.”
“Remember that this is YOUR LIFE, and nothing is more important than YOU.”