#rejection

She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when well sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one. On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? They never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual must be improper. Shirley was judged. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#empathy #expectations #expression #faithfulness #feeling

The singing stopped when I walked in. They all turned and stared at me, Bonne-Bell-Orange-Crush-glossed mouths hanging open, looking at me with the same horror and excitement they'd exhibit it I had just walked into the room naked. I stood there frozen, hyperaware of my scruffiness, my shirt untucked and one ponytail higher than the other. The Bad Dog turned me in on myself like a vortex, gleefully saying, Look, look. There they are, here you are. Separate. You do not belong. ↗

— Stacy Pershall

#rejection #bullying

The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart. ↗

— Richard Adams

#belief #contingent #forces #heart #human

I took all of my rejection letters - there must have been thousands of them in a huge box - and I went out on the curb and burned them all, crying. ↗

— Janet Evanovich

#box #burned #crying #curb #huge

I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love. ↗

— Anita Diament

#deeply #even #getting #give #i

I wrote poems in my corner of the Brooks Street station. I sent them to two editors who rejected them right off. I read those letters of rejection years later and I agreed with those editors. ↗

— Carl Sandburg

#brooks #corner #editors #i #later

As a teenager, my favourite rejection was, 'She looks too healthy,' which of course translates as, 'She needs to lose weight.' ↗

— Christina Ricci

#favourite #healthy #looks #lose #needs

I had come to regard the U.S. Senate's rejection of the League of Nations as a tragic mistake. ↗

— Elliot Richardson

#had #i #league #mistake #nations

I told the ambulance men the wrong blood type for my ex, so he knows what rejection feels like. ↗

— Pippa Evans

#blood #feels #i #knows #like

I don't really have disappointments, because I build myself up for rejection. ↗