The Fountainhead

"Why is it so important-- what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right-- so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic-- and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be some reason. I don't know. I've never known it. I'd like to understand."