Sifting?
Yes, if you understand that the "rejection" of passion-inspired art or passion-inspired love can only be experienced as such if you define it that way. Rejections always include beliefs, "formulas for success," calculations about "what will sell," measurements of one's "worthiness," etc., instead of just a loving focus on the simple but powerful desire and joy of offering one's gifts to another or to the world. In that latter framework, "pitching" or "auditioning," then, becomes more like looking for the right home, the right chemistry with another for your work or love.
Here's a short list of rejections received by some names you might recognize:
To Dr. Seuss:
"too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling."
Here's a rejection letter for THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK:
"The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the 'curiosity' level."
"Jonathan Livingston Seagull will never make it as a paperback." From the publisher of a magazine refusing an offer to bid on the paperback rights to Richard Bach's best selling novel. Avon Books eventually bought those rights and sales totaled more than 7.25 million copies.
H.G. Wells had to endure the indignity of a rejection when he submitted his manuscript, "The War of the Worlds" that said, "An endless nightmare. I do not believe it would "take"...I think the verdict would be 'Oh don't read that horrid book'." And when he tried to market "The Time Machine," it was said, "It is not interesting enough for the general reader and not thorough enough for the scientific reader."
Jacqueline Susann's "Valley of the Dolls" received this response, "...she is a painfully dull, inept, clumsy, undisciplined, rambling and thoroughly amateurish writer whose every sentence, paragraph and scene cries for the hand of a pro. She wastes endless pages on utter trivia, writes wide-eyed romantic scenes ...hauls out every terrible show biz cliché in all the books, lets every good scene fall apart in endless talk and allows her book to ramble aimlessly ..."
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's Associates in rejecting a proposal for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." -- A YALE UNIVERSITY professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner (Warner Brothers) before rejecting proposal for movies with sound in 1927.
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." --Gary Cooper on his decision to reject the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."-- Rejection letter to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." --Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken Olsen, pres., chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 (I owe this quote to Yasemin Urkmez).
"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." --Rejection letter to Arthur Jones, who invented the Nautilus Fitness Machine.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981, rejecting proposal for larger computer memory.
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H. Duell,Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." --Marshall Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". --Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." --The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall in rejecting a book on data processing, 1957.
"I do not believe the introduction of motor-cars will ever affect the riding of horses" -- Mr Scott-Montague, MP, in 1903 in the United Kingdom
"I do not think it would be practicable to introduce pedestrian crossings in London" -- Colonel Ashley, MP, Roads Minister in Britain, in 1927
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." --Western Union internal memo, 1876
"So we went o Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" --Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P inetersted in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.
"Who the hell wants to copy a document on plain paper???!!!" -- 1940 Rejection Letter to Chester Carlson, inventor of the XEROX machine (Note: In fact, over 20 companies rejected his "useless" idea between 1939 and 1944. Even the National Inventors Council dismissed it. Today, the Rank Xerox Corporation has an annual revenue in the range of one billion dollars.)
AND THE ALL-TIME WINNER REJECTION IS:
Decca Records rejecting The Beatles in 1962, an executive saying: "guitar groups are on the way out" and "the Beatles have no future in show business."
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