Quotes About Rejection

Of the first seven novels I wrote, numbers four and five were published. Numbers one, two, three, six, and seven, have never seen the light of day... and rightly so.

I bought a selection of short, romantic fiction novels, studied them, decided that I had found a formula and then wrote a book that I figured was the perfect story. Thank goodness it was rejected.

My second play, The Birthday Party, I wrote in 1958 - or 1957. It was totally destroyed by the critics of the day, who called it an absolute load of rubbish.

I had been struggling to get roles in Hollywood for three and a half years after leaving the WWE. Then I finally got an agent - the agent I have now. He's a great guy, but he turned me down three times before he even decided to take me on a as a client.

Returning to WWE before retiring is not a question of whether they want to or I want to return. Neither I hope nor want to return, nor do they expect me to return or want me to return.

WWE asked me to be in the Hall of Fame, and I turned it down. You know why? They put Pete Rose in the wrestling Hall of Fame. This guy can't even get into his own Hall of Fame.

When I came into WWE after Monday Night Wars, it wasn't my greatest time in the business... but they kept bringing me back.

Since I'm not in WWE, some people think I'm not even in their league. It's easy for me to tune those people out because they have no idea what they're talking about.

The one Hall of Fame that I refuse to go in is the WWE Hall of Fame because do you know where it's at? Where is it?

Prior to the Cruiserweight Classic, I had a tryout with WWE in 2013 and was told that I wasn't what they were looking for at the moment.

I've experienced WWE twice now, and I know that I do not enjoy that place. The second time I really had optimistic hopes and dreams, but I know I would never go back there.

It's almost like while you are working for the WWF everything is fine and good, but if you are no longer employed by them they want you to just drop off the face of the earth and it's like you never existed.

I'd like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair.

I'm a good singer, yet I couldn't participate in 'Star Ya Rockstar.'

In 2005, MTV Networks considered buying Facebook for seventy-five million dollars. Yahoo! and Microsoft soon offered much more. Zuckerberg turned them all down.

Being brave is what led to three rejections from Yale Law School before being accepted. It led to losing my 2010 race for U.S. Congress, and another failed bid for public office in 2013, this time for public advocate of New York City.

I actually started out as a poet in high school. I published in small literary magazines for probably about ten years. I entered the Yale Younger Poet contest every year, until I was too old to be a younger poet, and I never got more than a form rejection letter from them.

I consider my relationship with acting in Hollywood as sort of a mutual breakup. Through puberty, Hollywood didn't really want me anymore, and I was like, 'Yeah, I don't really want you, either.'

Yeah, a few of the films I made were so bad they didn't get released - they escaped.

One year they asked me to be poster boy - for birth control.

Being on a successful show is kind of like being a sea turtle. Every year, sea turtles lay hundreds and hundreds of eggs, but only a few manage to survive and mature. It's the same with TV pilots. There are so many great ideas, but for whatever reason only the lucky ones get picked up.

I did a bit of modeling before I took up acting, and I was up for this big campaign - I can't remember which designer - and all these execs were looking at my portfolio. Then one said: 'We'd like to use you, but can you come back next year when you've lost this.' And he tapped the underside of his chin.

Before I wrote my first novel, 'The Expats,' I spent nearly two decades at various arms of publishing houses such as Random House, Workman, and HarperCollins, mostly as an acquisitions editor. But a more accurate title for that job might be rejection editor: while I acquired maybe a dozen projects per year, I'd reject hundreds upon hundreds.

I applied to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and didn't get in the first year, so I worked at Costa and the Dean Gallery Cafe then applied again and got in the next year when I was 18. I was so excited.