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However, living off social security wasn't really ironic given that she viewed the social security payouts as reimbursement for the (what she considered unjust) payroll taxes she had been forced to pay.
Also, being selfish was central to her philosophy so this was in keeping with it.
My interpretation of The Fountainhead was as I described previously - the importance of staying true to who you are, even if this results in missing out on riches (or goes against popular opinion).
If you choose to read Atlas Shrugged, however, her opinions start to get more extreme and unsettling.
I usually bring this up to give people a baseline in explaining how loud the preaching eventually got in the _Sword of Truth_ series.
_Atlas Shrugged_ is one of the few books I couldn't finish once started; the characters were just too obnoxiously stupid.