Switch Manufacturer: I can’t use Rearden Metal for switches because it’s too expensive – it needs new furnaces and stuff for me to shape it! Isn’t this stuff supposed to be cheaper than steel?
Dagny Taggert: Screw you! I’ll bribe government officials to open closed plants! For some reason, I don’t consider using bribes to steal someone’s plant as looting, even though I’m supposed to believe in the sanctity of property rights! So long as they’re not my property! Yay, government corruption when it benefits me!
Hank Rearden: I don’t understand why people won’t use my experimental and untested material that costs far, far more to shape than iron! So I’ll just buy a long closed plant and get it running in a day! Who cares that you can’t do a title search in a day, much less hire a bunch of people and train them in a day, or replace all the equipment in an abandoned factory in a day! Capitalists have super-powers, like Jesus!
Commie Science Institute: Rearden Metal shouldn’t be used for engineering projects! It’s an unknown material whose long term reactions to weathering and stress are unknown!
Dagny: That’s just mindless propaganda! There’s no way to counter such statements!
Kit Bradley: What are you talking about, Dagny? It is an untested material. There is, actually, no way a person could know how it responds to years of stress, so it’s a legitimate criticism. And it can be tested. It just takes years to do so. I know this is inconvenient for you, but what you’re saying is just factually in error.
Disillusioned Scientist: The people demand government labs to produce things, and what have we ever produced? That’s why we’ve got to wreck business, because government scientists are useless.
Kit Bradley: Scientists, on the government dollar, have made radar and a BUNCH of other electronics innovations, pretty much all nuclear technology, nearly every advance in aviation since the Wright Brothers, the first digital computer, nearly every rocketry advance every made since before the British robbed Hyderabad, and this is just by ’57. Did Rand do ANY research for this?!
Francisco d’Anaconia: Don’t ask me for money, Dagny.
Dagny: I’ll ask you for money!
Francisco: I won’t give it because REASONS.
Dagny: I’m naming my new railroad business the John Galt Line.
Francisco: Don’t do that! I mean, uh, um, John Galt isn’t real. (He’s totally real.)
Dagny: I’m sad. I’ll go to Hank Rearden to get money.
Hank Rearden: Here’s some more money. Have you noticed we’re spending a lot of money with no known source of credit on highly risky ventures? I guess I just had millions and millions of liquid assets sitting around, doing nothing. Also, I want to boink you, but sex is dirty.
Dagny: If only Hank knew that when a rich guy slaps me around, I melt like sexual chocolate. Oh, well!
Tractor Manufacturer: I need steel.
Hank: Even though my factories are at capacity, sure, because I can tell you’re a Real Businessman, so it’s okay to dump other contracts, even though I supposedly believe in the sacredness of contracts! In THIS case, even though I’m acting like the bad guys who don’t deliver on time, it’s okay, because we’re all Real Businessmen.
Secretary: The commies have passed a commie act! Equalization is bad!
Hank: I’m sad because I never bothered to understand politics or public relations! I can’t even say who is actually in charge of the government or what they want, even though it is vital to my business interests know these things! Yet, the book will continue to assert that I’m a brilliant businessman despite me not understanding the basics of running a big company!
Bum: Who is John Galt?