She did not mind this new background; she was indifferent to the slums as she had been indifferent to the drawing rooms.

She said it quite correctly; there was nothing offensive in the quiet politeness of her voice; but following his high note of enthusiasm, her voice struck a tone that seemed flat and deadly in its indifference—as if the two sounds mingled into an audible counterpoint around the melodic thread of her contempt.

He thought...that man’s work should be a higher step, an improvement on nature, not a degradation. He did not want to despise men; he wanted to love and admire them.

They would return to unwanted jobs, unloved families, unchosen friends, to drawing rooms, evening clothes, cocktail glasses and movies, to unadmitted pain, murdered hope, desire left unreached, left hanging silently over a path on which no step was taken, to days of effort not to think, not to say, to forget and give in and give up.

His view of the world was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent; he was not concerned with the latter.

...Aren’t they all acting on a selfish motive—to be noticed, liked, admired?”
“—by others. At the price of their own self-respect. In the realm of greatest importance—the realm of values, of judgment, of spirit, of thought—they place others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn’t need it.