Yes, I thought it was long, but after thinking about it, I put myself in his position and realized it was not just a speech - more likely a RANT, and sometimes when on a RANT, you lose track of time, and tend to say the same thing several ways so that even the slowest listener will grasp the concept. Rand was quite the "wordsmith". I thought I had a pretty full vocabulary, but found many words I'd never heard used in context before!!