Albert S. Ruddy Quotes

You know what that big number was? It was 1957. It's not the year I was born. I'm a little older than that. I wish it was the year I was born. It was the year one of my favorite books was written: 'Atlas Shrugged.' Ayn Rand.

One of the very first serious books I read when I was growing up was 'Atlas Shrugged.'

The last book I read was the book I've been rereading most of my life, The Fountainhead.

Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read.

The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.

Whether or not you agree with Ayn Rand - and I have certain issues with some of her beliefs - the woman can tell a story. I mean, the novel as an art form is just in full florid bloom in 'Atlas Shrugged.' It's an unbelievable story. The characters are so compelling, and what she's saying is mind-expanding.

I read all of Ayn Rand's novels when I was 17.

The thing for me about Ayn Rand is that her philosophy is the only one applicable to the world today - in every sense. If you take her ideas, then take them farther in your own mind, you can find answers to pretty well everything on an individual basis.

Think Apple, think the FBI. We are living 'Atlas Shrugged.' Why is it so important? Because I would hate for the country to have that rhetorical question: Where is John Galt, who is John Galt? John Galt is all of us.

President Trump named Rand his favorite writer and 'The Fountainhead' his favorite novel.

It's one thing to buy a copy of 'Atlas Shrugged.' You actually have to read it to get anything out of it.

There's an oft-used shorthand for the technologist's view of the world. It is assumed that libertarianism dominates Silicon Valley, and that isn't wholly wrong. High-profile devotees of Ayn Rand can be found there.

If Ayn Rand were an up-and-coming author today, she wouldn't write about steel or railroads, it would be Net Neutrality.

Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.

Can someone explain the vitriol whenever Ayn Rand comes up? 'Atlas' is the greatest motivator for the individual that I can imagine.

...there ... remains a huge following [of Ayn Rand's philosophy] of those who ignore the indiscretions, infidelities, and moral inconsistencies of the founder and focus instead on the positive aspects of her philosophy. There is much in it to admire, if you do not have to accept the whole package... Criticism of the founder or followers of a philosophy does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the philosophy... Criticism of part of a philosophy does not gainsay the whole.

I tend to really be partial to Ayn Rand, and to The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

Of all Americans who have appeared on the nation's postage stamps, Ayn Rand is probably the only one to have thought that the United States government has no business delivering mail.

Some major writers have a huge impact, like Ayn Rand, who to my mind is a lousy fiction writer because her writing has no compassion and virtually no humor. She has a philosophical and economical message that she is passing off as fiction, but it really isn't fiction at all.

Remember, Alan Greenspan was a member of Ayn Rand's collective. To understand this is to understand why we are doomed with the Federal Reserve.

Libertarians are my most intense enemies

The anti-individualist enemies that Ayn Rand battled are still the enemy, but they've shifted their line of attack. Political collectivists are no longer much interested in taking things away from the wealthy and creative.

My greatest dream is to make a film on 'The Fountainhead,' which I have been restraining from doing because it is so much in the mind, and I am yet to be able to decode that.

How many different works of art have been inspired by 'Don Quixote?' Thousands. Most people enter the novel, for better or worse, through the musical the 'Man Of La Mancha.'

I took inspiration from 'Fountainhead,' the way in which Ayn Rand conveyed her political philosophy through an immensely popular novel.