A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. ‘Value’ is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue’ is the action by which one gains and keeps it. ‘Value’ presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value’ presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.

— Ayn Rand

A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.

— Ayn Rand

A cardinal principle of good fiction [is]: the theme and the plot of a novel must be integrated—as thoroughly integrated as mind and body or thought and action in a rational view of man.

— Ayn Rand

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

— Ayn Rand

Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.

— Ayn Rand

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

— Ayn Rand

A culture is made — or destroyed — by its articulate voices.

— Ayn Rand

A desire to choose the hardest might be a confession of weakness in itself.

— Ayn Rand

A good novel is an indivisible sum: every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization.

— Ayn Rand

A gracefully effortless floating, flowing and flying are the essentials of the ballet’s image of man.

— Ayn Rand