Rejection

To be a writer is to embrace rejection as a way of life.

DANA STABENOW

Failure is part of it. You will be rejected dozens and dozens of times. The best way to prepare for it is to have something else in the works by the time the rejection letter arrives. Invest your hope in the next project. Learning to cope with rejection is a good trait to develop.

PO BRONSON

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.

RAY BRADBURY

This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don’t consider it rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it “to the editor who can appreciate my work” and it has simply come back stamped “Not at this address.” Just keep looking for the right address.

BARBARA KINGSOLVER

I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.

SYLVIA PLATH

I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, “To hell with you.”

SAUL BELLOW

Work like hell! I had 122 rejection slips before I sold a story.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.

JAMES LEE BURKE

Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil — but there is no way around them.

ISAAC ASIMOV

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

SOMERSET MAUGHAM