Unpublished Work Quotes

I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn't realized it (the original book) had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.

My first book was so horrible I have deleted all copies of it. Thankfully, it was before the Internet, so there are no lurking caches of it anywhere.

I keep working under the delusion that someday a library will ask for my manuscripts.

I must have written 15 lyrics for 'The Lion King,' and only five or six were used. Some were scenes that disappeared, some were earlier versions of songs that didn't work, or else the characters changed.

My first book was a car crash. I tried to find all the copies and destroy them.

I do write, but for now I am keeping it all in the desk drawer. I have always written. The only book that I have published was "Revolution," during the election campaign, a book that contains both personal and political chapters. I have never been happy with what I have written, including three novels that, from my point of view, are incomplete.

There's a marvelous peace in not publishing, there's a stillness. When you publish, the world thinks you owe something. If you don't publish, they don't know what you're doing. You can keep it for yourself.

I remember all the way back in high school thinking about writing books. And, in fact, I've written a lot of stories. I've got dozens of stories I've written that no one's ever seen.

My first short story sale was to a magazine that sat on the story forever... and never did publish it.

I've probably written about three albums that no one will ever hear.

I think you could say every pastor is writing this book [ Max on Life]; for many it just never gets published.

It's really a lovely feeling to write knowing that failure is taken off the table because if it's bad you just never show it to anyone.

I love all of my children equally, all of my printed books, and each one bears a special piece of me. But the one I'm most proud of is the one no one will ever see - the very first manuscript I ever wrote, back in 1990. It took me a year to do it.

I've had a lot of books rejected in my time. My first novel, which didn't get published, was, with hindsight, crashingly dull.

There is lots of my work that takes place behind closed doors that is not ever seen.

Writing is something I've always done on the side. I thought that no one would be interested, so I kept it to myself.

I write as a matter of need - seven books and God knows how many short stories before anyone published me.

The truth is, I wrote a novel when I was 23. It's hideously bad. Truly rotten.

My first book is called 'Carry the Three.' It's definitely in a drawer, and it's terrible. I never sent it to anybody. My wife read it, but nobody else.

My father was a very prolific writer and he left behind a huge body of unpublished work.

I'd never been published when I was young.

I've written a couple raps in my day, in my own music career, that people don't know a lot about.

The unpublished manuscript is like an uncon-fessed sin that festers in the soul, corrupting and contaminating it.

I had a lot of fun writing things that died during dress rehearsal. Sometimes I remember the crazy ones that died even more fondly than the ones that did really well.

If you're one of the hundreds of thousands of people out there toiling over your unpublished manuscript, trying to make your way across that vast ocean in a bathtub, I can only say this to you: keep paddling. Well, either that or start vlogging.