“She knew that even pain can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to stand naked, delivered to the witness, yet they could let each other see it without the need of protection.”

— Ayn Rand , book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Ayn Rand 322

Russian-American novelist and philosopher 1905–1982

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“She knew that even pain can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to stand naked, delivered to the witness…”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“They talked quietly, lying on their backs and letting the words float up to the ceiling as though they were talking to themselves. By reason of their calmness they could tell each other everything without shame, without its sounding like a confession. Nor were they surprised at what they found out about each other.”

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Samuel Johnson in The Rambler, no. 148 (17 August 1751).
Misattributed

“The first step of obedience that any of you can take is to confess your sins to God before his witnesses.”

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“Why do human beings need to confess? Maybe if you don’t have that secret confession, you don’t have a poem — don’t even have a story. Don’t have a writer.”

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Context: Why do human beings need to confess? Maybe if you don’t have that secret confession, you don’t have a poem — don’t even have a story. Don’t have a writer. If most poetry doesn’t seem to be in any sense confessional, it’s because the strategy of concealment, of obliquity, can be so compulsive that it’s almost entirely successful.