We're Americans. That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country of the world.
When the war broke out I decided I would be very patriotic. Standing my full height. I presented myself to the Wacs and the to the Waves. And I was rejected - I was an inch too tall.
I feel as if I've been so inured to failure, because I fail more than I succeed. As with any kind of fiction, I throw out so many pages; I get rejected so many times.
Actually, I was a little rejected at first. I kind of got slapped down.
Political lobbying is like propositioning women. You get slapped a lot of times, but then you get some ‘yeses’ as well.”
Johnson was very experienced at both.
That and the fact that I knew that nobody was going to publish my work at Dark Horse or DC or anywhere.
My first novel was turned down by about twenty publishers over a period of two and a half years. Because my name is Irish and would not be familiar to English editors, one of them said: 'If she writes anything else, do let us know.' Slowly, very slowly, the books began to sell and be noticed.
Now, I'll tell you something that might interest you. Casino Royale was the first Bond book that Ian Fleming ever wrote. And he couldn't get anybody to touch it, to publish it - he couldn't do anything about it at all. Nobody wanted to know.
Everyone has that experience in a club where a doorman doesn't pick you out.
Every published writer, myself included, was at one time unpublished. All writers know what rejection feels like.
You write for the people in high school who ignored you. We all do.
When I was up in Washington state, I always thought, 'I'm going to go to Los Angeles where films are made and stories are told, and they're going to love me and welcome me with open arms.' But, there was no welcoming committee.
I don't know if many people know that one of the first jobs that I wanted and I lined up for was cabin crew at Jet. I was rejected because I was told I don't have a good personality. Thank God for your rejection. After that, I got a job at McDonald's, and the rest is history.
The U.S. museums weren't looking at my paintings at all - they hated them, irredeemably. People metaphorically threw up when they saw my work! They thought I was enlarging comics, or just copying them.
It just took the right time. I was fully confident that I was going to see Sam Phillips and to record for him that when I called him, I thought, I'm going to get on Sun Records. So I called him and he turned me down flat. Then two weeks later, I got turned down again. He told me over the phone that he couldn't sell gospel music so - as it was independent, not a lot of money.
I never had a rejection slip in my life.
I not only wanted to write when I was 7 and 8, but I sent stuff out when I was 7 and 8. I sent it out... and I couldn't believe that they would turn down my poems about faithful dogs.
I had an audition where Josh Brolin was pelting me with his personality. I didn't get the part.
A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time and never gotten anywhere.
I've auditioned for normal characters. But I never get cast.
There is this to be said about having money. You get rejected by a higher class of people.
I basically never believed that I was a commercial actor. Just because of the outcome of many auditions over time. No one hired me.
Oh, I was an ugly kid. My old man took me to the zoo. They thanked him for returning me.
There were years in between of going to auditions pretty much every day and getting nothing.
I wrote short stories for seven years and used to mail them out. You couldn't send them by e-mail. I called them manila boomerangs. I'd seal the self-addressed stamped envelope inside an envelope and I'd mail it off, and it would come back six weeks later with a rejection letter in it.
