Theodore Sturgeon Quotes

I became a connoisseur of that nasty thud a manuscript makes when it comes through the letter box.

Authors by the hundreds can tell you stories by the thousands of those rejection slips before they found a publisher who was willing to 'gamble' on an unknown.

I used to submit to anthologies and magazines when I was a student - but I knew I was never going to be picked up.

In 2011, I did an internship in Seven Dials, a junction in London where seven roads come together. I'd given up on writing after multiple rejections for my first novel, and I was starting to consider a career in publishing instead, but Seven Dials gave me such a strong idea for a setting that I couldn't resist picking up my pen again.

I knew Anais Nin, who called me after I had been away for a few years. She was seeking help because at that time no one would give her a decent review. She was made fun of.

I struggled for a long time to get anything published.

As an editor, I read Charlotte Rogan's amazing debut novel, 'The Lifeboat,' when it was still in manuscript. I read it in one night, and I really wanted my company to publish it, but we lost it to another house. It's such a wonderful combination of beautiful writing and suspenseful storytelling.

For over a year I continued to submit mss, and have them rejected - the last few with rejection letters indicated the story was pretty good, but I was American.

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

I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success.'

Writing one's first novel, getting it sold, and shepherding it through the labyrinths of editing, production, marketing, journalism, and social media is an arduous and nerve-wracking process.

My first novel was rejected by some of the most eminent publishers in the world. Starting again was a real wrench.

The usual way - through a long series of rejections, revising my manuscripts, and kept trying again and again. Finally I was fortunate enough to find a good agent.

I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.

When I wrote my first book, 'Koolaids,' I felt rejected and not wanted.

There was a part of me that always wanted to be an editor.

As I see it, my job has always been to champion the work of the authors I publish.

Piece by piece I sent my first book of poems to American Poetry Review and was rejected one by one.

It's a shame publishers send rejection slips. Writers should get something more substantial than a slip that amounts to a pile of confetti. Publishers should send something heavier. Editors should send out rejection bricks, so at the end of a lot of years, you would have something to show besides a wheelbarrow of rejection slips. Instead you could have enough bricks to build a house.

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

I got a rejection letter from an editor at HarperCollins, who included a report from his professional reader. This report shredded my first-born novel, laughed at my phrasing, twirled my lacy pretensions around and gobbed into the seething mosh pit of my stolen clichés. As I read the report, the world became very quiet and stopped rotating. What poisoned me was the fact that the report's criticisms were all absolutely true. The sound of my landlady digging in the garden got the world moving again. I slipped the letter into the trash... knowing I'd remember every word.

The publishing of a book is a worldwide event. The attempt to suppress a book is a worldwide event.

The biggest kick is reading something new and exciting and then getting other people to share your enthusiasm. Beyond all the cant and hypocrisy in publishing, that's what it's all about.

I wrote 'Time Stops at Shamli' in 1956, shortly after 'The Room on the Roof' was published, and I couldn't find anyone to publish it.

I always had good recognition from the Southern writers, but the publishers never took any notice of that.