Alexander Chee Quotes

Failure has been my best friend as a writer. It tests you, to see if you have what it takes to see it through.

Rejection is part of the process, so you can't let it crush you. My first three novels never made it into publication, but my fourth, 'Sheltering Rain,' was translated into 11 languages.

The way most people fail is in not keeping up the heart.

I don't think many of us launched ourselves into the world of writing books fully formed.

I started by writing short stories, but they weren't very good; I tried them on various magazines, and none of them was published. People were nicer then about turning you down, and so I didn't lose heart - I kept on writing and wrote a lot of books, one or two of which I finished, and others I didn't.

As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rejected, either by agents or publishers. You absolutely must plow forward.

I envision Hollywood as a race, and some people simply drop off before their turn comes around. It's all about stamina - your ability to get back up and keep going even though everything is pointing at the odds not being in your favor.

A writer is what I am.

Courage allows the successful woman to fail - and to learn powerful lessons from the failure - so that in the end, she didn't fail at all.

Don't give up. You're going to get kicked in the teeth. A lot. Learn to take a hit, then pick yourself up off the floor. Resilience is the true key to success.

The hope of courage lies in every heart, together with the fear that we will fail. When the test came, you did not fail.

Success is not achieved by winning all the time. Real success comes when we rise after we fall.

Step follows step, Hope follows Courage, Set your face towards danger, Set your heart on victory.

I believe that it may happen that one will succeed, and one must not begin to despair, even though defeated here and there; and even though one sometimes feels a kind of decay, though things go differently from the expected, it is necessary to take heart again and new courage. For the great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed. What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

The novelist screws up his courage in order to invest another two or three years in another attempt to float a boat of original design upon an invented ocean.

It doesn’t matter how strong or capable you are; if you don’t have a big heart, you will not succeed.

Self-discipline without talent can often achieve astounding results, whereas talent without self-discipline inevitably dooms itself to failure.

The timid and fearful first failures dismay, but the stout heart stays trying by night and by day. He values his failures as lessons that teach The one way to get to the goal he would reach.

I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.

It is only after an unknown number of unrecorded labors, after a host of noble hearts have succumbed in discouragement, convinced that their cause is lost; it is only then that cause triumphs.

Be bold, brave and not afraid to fall on your face and ultimately you will succeed

I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it is an illusion to me . . . Failure always made me try harder next time.

At the beginning of a novel, a writer needs confidence, but after that what's required is persistence. These traits sound similar. They aren't. Confidence is what politicians, seducers and currency speculators have, but persistence is a quality found in termites. It's the blind drive to keep on working that persists after confidence breaks down.

In order to be successful, you have to make sure that being rejected doesn’t bother you at all.