Excerpt

At a Train station - man speaking to Dagny Taggart

"I don't like the thing that's happening to people, Miss Taggart."
"What?"


" I don't know. But I've watched them for twenty years and I've seen the change. They used to rush through here, and it was wonderful to watch, it was the hurry of men who knew where they were going and were eager to get there.
Now they are hurrying because they are afraid.
It's not a purpose that drives them, it's fear.
They're not going anywhere, they're escaping.
And I don't think they know what it is they want to escape.
They don't look at one another. They jerk when brushed against.

They smile too much, but it's an ugly kind of smiling; it's not joy, it's pleading.

I don't know what it is that's happening to the world."
He shrugged.

"Oh well, who is John Galt?"




Atlas Shrugged was written by Ayn Rand in 1957.