Dagny Taggart: I’ve got to get to Utah, FAST, to talk to the man who is figuring out the Miracle Motor (a plot point ignored for 300 pages!), so I’m taking a train! Trains DEFINE fast!

Coachman: Get off the train, you bum!

Objectivist Bum: But I’m a CAPITALIST!

Dagny: He’s tall and thin, proof of his CAPITALISM!  Let him stay! Tell me a story!

Objectivist Bum: Communism sucks! I started the whole “who is John Galt” thing, too. It is important to show no credulity that out of hundreds of millions of Americans, you just happen to find one of the few people who really knows John Galt’s origin story! Remember, I’m a CAPITALIST, not a moocher saying what you want to hear to take advantage of you.

Continue reading Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary, Chapter 20 →

Dagny Taggart: I love my apartment now that my job sucks. Why doesn’t the whole world be like I want it to be? I’d be happy if everything was exactly like I wanted, which isn’t childish of me AT ALL. Hark! A knock! Who could it be?

Francisco d’Anaconia: It’s me!

Dagny: Of course it is. Of course.

Francisco: Do you remember that thing, last chapter, when I said that you should just go back and read my other speeches? I’m here to give that speech, again.

Continue reading Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary, Chapter 19 →

Dagny Taggert: I’m in a cabin learning to be unemployed and hating it!  I can’t go to Hank, because being in a committed relationship with someone isn’t about helping each other out!  No one knows where I am.

Francisco d’Anaconia: I know where you are.

Dagny: Curses! What do you want?

Francisco: To do what I do best. Give the same speech I’ve given three times before!

Dagny: I love that speech!

Continue reading Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary, Chapter 18 →

Eddie Villers: I exist to tell some random guy working that is totally not John Galt (he’s John Galt) where everything is. Despite being a lickspittle who is totally incompetent, I’m one of the heroes. Here, total stranger who isn’t John Galt (he’s John Galt), let me tell you where Dagny Taggart is!

Not John Galt: Thanks.

Hank Rearden: Since my moral weakness with Rearden Metal where I signed it over to the government, I walk through dangerous woods alone!

Continue reading Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary, Chapter 17 →

Commie Government Officials: We will consciously restrict the economy because we’re idiots!

James Taggart: I feel guilty thinking about George Washington, because he was such a great capitalist who never owned slaves!

Commie Crook: Intellectuals suck and are the allies of tyrants, which is why every tyranny in the world has rounded up to imprison or kill intellectuals!

Commie Government Officials: Yeah! And now we’ll give a lot of speeches about why we’re the good guys!  Seriously, it’ll last about twelve pages!

Wesley Mooch: We will force businessmen to sign over the intellectual property rights of all their stuff! And by “force” we don’t mean force. Because commie tyrants would never use guns!

Dagny Taggart: No way! I quit! Hank, when they come after you, I want to share your burdens.

Hank Rearden: I’ll never sign of Rearden Metal!

Commie Dr. Ferris: We’ll reveal your affair with Dagny, which will embarrass her.

Hank: Drat! Despite Dagny having contempt for public opinion, and the reason she hasn’t revealed the affair already  is so I’m not embarrassed, and despite her just telling me that she wants to share my burdens, I’ll ignore all of that and sign over Rearden Metal!

Dagny Taggart: I told everyone that those commie limits on production would cause disaster. It’s causing disaster! Ha! I will, of course, ignore ongoing industrial sabotage by the person I literally call “the destroyer”, not to mention widespread piracy that has stopped metal production in the US – it is ONLY the result of the COMMIES.

Commie Business Leaders: It is a disaster!  We will also fail to blame industrial saboteurs or pirates! We will blame James Taggart!

James Taggart: Huh? I’m a sychophant!

Commie Business Leaders: Dime a dozen, dude.

James: Drat!

Continue reading Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary, Chapter 15 →

Lillian Rearden: Happy Thanksgiving!

Hank Rearden: I hate you.  And Thanksgiving is the celebration of productive people.

Kit Bradley: Oh, good lord, really? Hey, I guess a writer who says that there was no slavery in the US has already demonstrated her ignorance about American history, but STILL.

Hank: And I refuse to feel guilty about hating my wife, because if I did, I’d be a good person, and therefore wouldn’t need to feel guilty.

Kit: Holy tautology, Batman! This chapter is gonna be rough.

Continue reading Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary, Chapter 14 →

Lillian Rearden: Ha! I caught you!  You’re a cheater! I don’t know who, and I won’t look, because I don’t want a divorce, or even a separation, and despite your constant emotional distance, your lack of interest in my life, the creepy sexual domination thing that you want from women, and your infidelity – remember, readers, I’m the bad guy!

Hank Rearden: Whatevs. I’m still going to boink my mistress. Remember, readers, my emotional distance, lack of interest in my wife’s life, the creepy sexual domination I demand but don’t even inform her about, and my infidelity make me the good guy!

Continue reading Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary, Chapter 13 →

Dagny Taggart: Capitalist Engineer, name your price to fix the Miracle Motor that I took from someone else’s property to use for my own profit!

Capitalist Engineer: I’ll take a low salary, now, but when I’ve discovered how it works, I’ll squeeze you!

Dagny: Okay!

Kit Bradley: Waitasec, isn’t he just saying he’s going to break his contract with you? Why are you hiring him?!

Capitalist Engineer: But I want to keep working at the Utah Institute of Technology, because they have a lab there that I’m using. I’m actually a night watchman, but I just ignore the job they’re paying me to do, to steal their power and supplies, to do what I want to do.  Work is very important to CAPITALISTS.

Continue reading Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary, Chapter 12 →

Dr. Statler: Commies wrote a commie book and twisted my words! It is published by the State Science Institute that I supposedly run, though I do nothing administrative – indeed, I actively avoid administration! I’ll summon the commie stooge who wrote the book.

Commie Stooge Scientist: Sorry, my car broke down.

Dr. Statler: I hate you for not apologizing! Commie stooge, you misrepresented me!

Commie Stooge Scientist: Well, yeah. People are stupid. I’m publishing the book to manipulate them.

Dr. Statler: Though I agree people are stupid, I don’t like how you are manipulating them.  You should manipulate them through CAPITALISM.

Continue reading Atlas Shrugged EXECUTIVE Summary: Chapter 11 →