Micah Kennedy’s Reviews > The Fountainhead > Status Update

“And now, to cure a world perishing from selflessness, we're asked to destroy the self.”

Accurate.

“It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence—such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.”

“She let her hands lie in sight on the arms of her chair, so that the relief of any violent motion would be denied her, her hands as her private barometer of endurance.”

“There was silence in the audience, puzzled and humble. When someone laughed, the rest joined in, with relief, glad to learn that they were enjoying themselves.”

So good 😭

“Most people go to very to very great lengths in order to convince themselves of their self-respect."
"Yes."
"And, of course, a quest for self-respect is proof of its lack."
"Yes."
"Do you see the meaning of a quest for self-contempt?"
"That I lack it?"
"And that you'll never achieve it.”
🔥

“There's a special kind of subtlety in being as blatant as he's been. A very difficult kind. I almost like his artistry.”

He had the kind of face one could but remember even while looking at it. 🤌

He heard and saw things that gave him immunity from astonishment for the rest of his life.

You see, reasons require scales to weigh them. And scales are not made of cotton. And cotton is what the human spirit is made of—you know, the stuff that keeps no shape and offers no resistance and can be twisted forward and backward and into a pretzel. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line—it's a middleman. And the more middlemen, the shorter. Such is the psychology of a pretzel.

🤣