Remembrance of Rejections Past

Even Proust got rejected:

• "I only troubled myself so far as to open one of the notebooks of your manuscripts; I opened it at random, and, as luck would have it, my attention soon plunged into the cup of camomile tea on page 62--then tripped, at page 64, on the phrase...'visible vertebra of a forehead.'"
• "I may be dead from the neck up, but I can't see why a chap should need thirty pages to describe how he turns over in bed before going to sleep."