Quotes About Rejection

Actually my first eight books were historical novels, but they were never published.

The hard fact is that not everyone does get published.

I'd never been published when I was young.

Blogs are for anoraks who couldn't get published any other way.

Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane.

If I hadn't been able to get my first book published, I am not sure what I would have done.

I write as a matter of need - seven books and God knows how many short stories before anyone published me.

My first four books were not published because nobody wanted them. They were adult books, not kids' books.

Writing careers are short. For every 100 writers, 99 never get published. Of those who do, only one in every hundred gets a career out of it, so I count myself as immensely privileged.

I always assumed I could never make a living out of literary fiction, and I was right. When I did try, it took four years before being published.

Getting your work published is a major struggle.

I had a very high-grade publisher tell me I was incapable of writing a memoir.

It's always hard to write and get your words out there, to find an editor, a publisher - readers! - who are going to appreciate them.

The conventional wisdom is that authors get only one chance in this world. If your first novel doesn't sell, publishers and bookstores lose interest, and your career stalls, barring an act of God or Oprah.

As for collaboration - I have done a lot, 26 books, and found publishers increasingly resistive to them. It's not that the books are bad; editors won't even read them.

My first novel was turned down by half a dozen publishers. And even after having published five or six books, I wasn't making enough money to live on, and was beginning to think I'd have to give up the dream of being a full-time writer.

When my book was first sent out to publishers, my agent told me to buy a lot of ice-cream and wait. So I bought a gigantic amount of ice-cream, and huddled by the freezer eating it and shaking, hoping someone would like it.

Like most new writers, I could only hope that one day one publisher might agree to publish one of my books; I couldn't imagine several publishers all wanting to buy the first book I'd written.

I worked in the book publishing business for nearly two decades before I turned my attention to writing, first with a couple ghostwriting projects, plus a crappy novel that absolutely no one wanted to publish. Then I moved to Luxembourg for my wife's job and found the inspiration for 'The Expats.'

Publishing can be tough. It has the ability to kill dreams.

I was 17 when I wrote a collection of short stories and wanted it published but it didn't happen. A lot of publishing houses don't allow young authors to enter into writing segments.

If you're not the guy who is going to puff your chest out like a rooster and go fight somebody, our society discards you.

You go for an audition, and you meet a director, and you find that they don't want you. You have to have a pull with them: that they understand what you want to bring to it. That you don't want to be the pretty little thing.

I was not a fan of the Clash or, for that matter, any other punk band that existed.