We see Roark suffer pain only rarely, as when he learns that Dominique has married Keating (373–75). Clearly, he experiences serious setbacks: losing commissions, losing his practice, defeat at the Stoddard trial, separation from the woman he loves. Yet life’s worst kind of pain results from letting oneself down (as Wynand poignantly illustrates). As long as Roark does not do that, external blows carry a limited sting, hurting “only down to a certain point” (344). Blows inflicted by others cannot hurt him, in the sense that they cannot damage his character.

- Tara Smith. Unborrowed Vision: Independence and Egoism in The Fountainhead.