1. Never take the blame for something you do not know. Be sure, however, to take the blame for writing errors you do know about. -p. 1
2. Do not conclude, at the first difficulty, that you are hopeless. -p. 2
3. What is the nature of the thing I want to do? -p. 7
4. First observe that you cannot do everything at once. -p. 7
5. Once you decide on a subject and theme and determine that your idea is new; ask yourself why someone else should be interested in your article. -p. 18
6. Incidentally, it is always safer (at least on the first draft) to overexplain[sic] than to underexplain.[sic]. When in doubt, include the information, because in editing you can always shorten or eliminate the passage. -p. 21
7. ...when you write, assume nothing is self-evident but logic. -p. 21
8. ...so the abstract problem "man versus the state" has occurred in practically every society in history. It is the major political problem in the world today... -p. 28
9. ...too many objectivists ask themselves, "What do I have to feel?" instead of, "What do I feel?" And if they need to judge a situation which I have not discussed before, their approach is, "What should I think? "instead of, "What do I think?" -p.28 Peter Gumaer Ogden ["pgo"] note: This sounds like most of the cowardly victims of early 21st century "political correctness" in America.
10. Philosophy cannot give you a set of dogmas to be applied automatically. Religion does that----and unsuccessfully. The dogmatic objectivist desperately tries to reduce principles to concrete rules that can be applied automatically, like a ritual, so as to bypass the responsibility of thinking and of moral analysis. There are "Objectivist" ritualists. They want Objectivism to give them what a religion promises, namely, ten or one hundred commandments, which they can apply without having to think about or judge anything." -p. 30 PGO note: This sounds like the mindset [often subconscious] of most people in the world today and since the beginning of humanity, presumably.
11. Well, that was the attitude at the height of the Middle Ages, when nothing was permitted except what led to the greater glory of the Church. -p. 31
12. There is nothing wrong in having "demons". What is wrong is evading them and doing nothing about them. -p. 33
13. Every adversity has its uses. -p. 35
14. The crisis, as usual, has produced not only danger but opportunity... -p. 35
15. ...it is interesting that... -p. 38
16. ...their main purpose is to pretend that the situation is not as bad as it is. -p. 39
17. First I broke down the encyclical into its essential points; then with colored pencils I established a code matching each color with a particular subject. I marked each relevant paragraph with the color pertaining to it subject. For example, red stood for economics, blue for politics, green for ethics, etc. -p. 77 PGO note: From her chapter "Writing the Draft" on organizing a particularly complicated outline of subject material with color coding.
18. You have to acquire the right amount of knowledge, and then give your subconscious time to digest and integrate it. -p. 79
19. (When I was writing Atlas Shrugged, I accepted neither day nor evening appointments, with rare exceptions, for roughly thirteen years. -p.82
20. This again is like the blast furnace I mentioned, which must be heated for weeks before it is ready to forge steel. It is a disaster if the furnace goes out. A furnace not in use is still kept burning, because it is a long and expensive process to bring it back to the right temperature. This is a good metaphor for preparing the mind for writing, which takes such an enormous level of concentration that an interruption is like the furnace going cold. If you are interrupted, it takes much longer than the appointment to bring yourself back to work. Not only will you not work the same day, you will most likely lose the next day as well. This happens even to experienced writers who recognize their inner signs.
Do not attempt to write if you have urgent interruptions. If you can, set yourself certain days of the week during which you do nothing but write. Do all your other duties during the other part of the week. Subconsciously, what you need in order to write is that sense of an uninterrupted immediate future. It cannot extend forever, but you must know that at least for today--and preferably for the next few days-- you will be free to devote yourself to writing alone.
Similarly, if you have a mixed profession (i.e., a job besides writing), it is better to divide your week into two parts, than to attempt to do both jobs on the same day. Some people can manage it, but I have never been able to. When I worked at jobs other than writing, I could not write at night, but only on the weekends. Some people, however, are more elastic; a lot depends on your psycho-epistemology. But it is an absolute that you cannot work if you know that an interruption is imminent. -pps. 82-83
21. Do not make time a constant pressure. Do not judge your progress by each day; since the production of any written material is irregular, nobody but a hack can be sure how much he will produce in a given day. -p 84
22. ...write your first draft as spontaneously as possible, neither aiming at jazzy touches nor censuring yourself for their absence. -p. 107
23. As encouragement, let me tell you about my first published work, a pamphlet about the actress Pola Negri. I was twenty and living in Soviet Russia. -p. 108 PGO note: I saved this quote to demonstrate that this extremely famous and influential author began her publishing career humbly with a small pamphlet.
24. We cannot stand still in life. We either move forward or we deteriorate. Therefore, always seek to enlarge your understanding. -p. 177
25. The first concern of style is clarity. Remember that approximations will not do. -p. 111
26. To present an abstract principle, you need illustrations. Giving examples (particularly if you are presenting a new theory) ties abstractions to reality--it shows what kinds of concretes illustrate the abstraction you are writing about. -p. 111
27. "...consider the sewer of degradation which is today's culture, and the images of man it projects." -p.113
28. When, from the distance of the moon, from the height of the triumph of science, we expected to hear the astronauts' message and heard, instead, a voice reciting the moldy nonsense which even a slum-corner evangelist would not have chosen as text--reciting the Bible's cosmology--I, for one, felt as if the capsule had disintegrated and we were left in the primordial darkness of empty space. -p. 115 PGO note: Rand on an Apollo 8 astronaut reading from the Bible after landing successfully on the moon.
29. Don't #1: Don't say something in a complicated manner when it can be said simply. ...I am speaking strictly about style here, where a writer does understand the content of his passage clearly, but nevertheless puts words together in a complicated way.
Some writers do this deliberately to conceal the fact that they have nothing to say. Nietzsche has a line [in Thus Spake Zarathustra] about poets muddying their waters to make them appear deep. Other writers do it so that people will not understand too clearly what they are saying. The archetype here is Immanuel Kant. Most of today's newspaper and magazine reporting is a combination of the "muddied waters" approach and a gutter version of Kant. Its authors write so vaguely that they hide the fact that (1) they have nothing much to say, and (2) what they have to say is so evil that no one would accept it if they said it straight. That is predominantly that way liberals write: they use every euphemism and indirection possible in order not to say that they are advocating dictatorship. -p. 122 PGO note: Bold emphasis is mine. This last remark reminds me very much of the far left wing lunatic fringe liberals that I observed in abundance when I lived in the crime ridden city of Santa Fe, New Mexico from 2008-2010.
30. Don't use a "seventy-five cent word" where a two-syllable word will do. Memorizing the more obscure parts of the dictionary is not erudition; and erudition (or the desire to show it) is not part of style. The simpler the words, the better.
The archvillain here is William Buckley, who makes a clown of himself. His trademark is to use words he probably spends half his time looking up in the dictionary. He expects you not to know them, and therefore to feel guilty and inferior. But the real effect is that you lose interest. -p.123
31. Don't use pejorative adjectives, sarcasm, or inappropriate humor.
There are some subjects which one can only discuss sarcastically, e.g., the hippies or modern art. There the subject gives you the necessary ground. It is a caricature in itself, and therefore you cannot evaluate it except in sarcastic terms (though you can discuss its psychological and philosophical roots seriously). For instance, in my article "The 'Inexplicable Personal Alchemy,'" when I move from the Russian rebels to the American rebels, I am sarcastic from the outset. I write: "America, too, has a vanguard of young rebels, dissenters, and fighters for freedom. Marching down the aisle of a theater, they shout their protest to the world: 'I cannot travel without a passport!...I am not allowed to smoke marijuana!...I am not allowed to take my clothes off!" I say that the hippies are "puppets in search of a master" and "exhibitionists who have nothing to exhibit," etc. Which are sarcastic metaphors. Yet there was no other way to describe them. -p. 125
32. Something too familiar becomes invisible. -p. 127
33. In an article once in Esquire, a number of people (myself included) were asked what the Apollo 11 astronauts should say when they land on the moon. One comedienne suggested: "Miami Beach, it isn't."
-p 130
Ayn Rand
