Danielle Steel Quotes

I struggled for a long time to get anything published.

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

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

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.

It took me ten years and seven books to bag an agent - it took me that long to start writing good.

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.

So, while I gave up the notions of publishing at that time, I never stopped editing and refining that book. A few years later, in 1987, I thought I had it ready to go out again.

I rewrite my books many times before submitting them, and after my editor takes a look I wind up rewriting some more! It's a good thing I learned at an early age to keep on trying. Stick to it, and eventually you'll get there.

The trick was really finding the appropriate publisher for each of the projects I'd devised.

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

I have been rejected 120 times, probably because I didn't write the right book.

I had an agent who spent eight years - eight years! - trying to sell my stories. She sold other people's work; she just didn't sell mine.

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 heard you had to get 200 rejections before you got published.

Slowly, after dozens of rejection slips and failures and false starts and postponed dreams - what Langston Hughes called dreams deferred - I stepped onto the hallowed ground of being a published novelist, and then 15 years later, I even started to make real money.

There's a word for a writer who never gives up: published.

The only truly safe thing you can do is to try over and over again. To go for it, to get rejected, to repeat, to strive, to wish. Without rejection there is no frontier, there is no passion, and there is no magic.

Some people have an unrealistic expectation when it comes to getting published; the fact is most publishers will turn down your work which is why you need to be persistent.

If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start.

Of course I had a piece of luck I couldn't have imagine for myself in a million years: I got an agent. That sped up the process. I'd say it's a good idea, getting an agent.

No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn't trying.

Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.

I will not fail,' the water bearer's daughter vowed. 'But worse than failing is not to try at all. For then there can be no hope of success.

Those who dare to try what others only dream of - never fail to discover that real effort is always rewarded.