Judith Guest Quotes

Send it to someone who can publish it. And if they won't publish it, send it to someone else who can publish it! And keep sending it! Of course, if no one will publish it, at that point you might want to think about doing something other than writing.

I got nice rejections explaining that historical fiction was a difficult sell. But I kept trying.

My hopes are not always realized, but I always hope.

The starkest rejection letter might be followed by a million-dollar advance. Don't let rejection start to look the same as failure.

I left for New York expecting to repeat my success, only to be turned down by almost every publisher in that city, till the Viking Press, my American publishers of a lifetime, thought of taking me on.

It is important to send your work to as many publishers as possible. For every one publisher who may show interest in your work, there will be at least five who will reject you.

The most successful people in the world are people who were rejected more than anybody else.

The best advice my dad ever gave me is, ‘No does not mean never. It just means not yet.’ So not every audition, you’re gonna get but as long as you know it wasn’t meant for you then you’ll get the next one.

Successful people reject rejection.

Teaching other people to write is not something I can do. The only kind of advice I can give them will be trite by its nature. Of course, read a lot, write a lot. The kind of advice I wish I had been given is all of a practical nature, having to do with publishers and agents.

The biggest hurdle is rejection. Any business you start, be ready for it. The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is the successful people do all the things the unsuccessful people don't want to do. When 10 doors are slammed in your face, go to door number 11 enthusiastically, with a smile on your face.

Pan me, don't give me the part, publish everybody's book but this one and I will still make it!

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.

Don't get discouraged from all the rejection.

When I was growing up the publishing world seemed so far away. When my mother wrote a book, she would look up the address of publishers on the backs of the books she owned and send off her manuscript.

Don't be afraid to fail. You're going to go on a million auditions, and most of them you won't get. It's very easy to think, 'This is not going to work for me,' but keep at it. It's very generic advice, but you have to be willing to keep yourself in the game.

A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success.

If I went by all the rejection I've had in my career, I should have given up a long time ago.

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.

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.

Because most writers have totally unrealistic concepts of how publishing works.

You have to be determined, and be able to accept, 'No.' I've heard, 'No,' a thousand times, and I've heard, 'Yes,' a handful of times.

I still take losing out very seriously. But it inspires me that much more to move on. Quite often in my business, it's not the most talented people that succeed. Because they don't necessarily have the tenacity to deal with rejection.

You definitely get the answer 'no' more times in this business than you do 'yes.' It's what you do with those 'nos' that makes your success either great or not.

As important as hustle is, grit and resilience are equally as important because there's a lot of rejection in our business.