"Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work"
About this Quote
Rejection is recast as an investment rather than a verdict. The metaphor of dues puts the creative life on the same footing as an apprenticeship: you earn your way not only with hours of labor but with the sting of being turned down. Each no becomes a small, painful deposit that compounds into resilience, craft, and clarity. It hardens you without making you hard-hearted, because the cost is paid in humility and persistence. Over time, those payments get translated back into the work as sharper sentences, truer scenes, tighter structure, and a more generous understanding of human failure. Instead of proof that you do not belong, rejection becomes part of the training that helps you belong more fully.
James Lee Burke speaks from experience. His novel The Lost Get-Back Boogie was rejected 111 times over nine years before a university press finally published it; it went on to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. That long ordeal did not merely precede his success, it fed it. Burke’s fiction is saturated with hard weather, moral struggle, and the stubborn dignity of people who keep going. You can hear the echo of those years of refusal in the patience of his pacing, the refusal to write down to readers, the refusal to abandon flawed characters. The same world that told him no taught him where the true tensions lie, and that knowledge became part of his voice.
The line also carries an ethical charge. Dues imply responsibility, a debt owed to the craft and to the audience. Paying them keeps entitlement at bay and turns ambition into service. You do not pocket rejection as bitterness; you convert it into credibility. For anyone making things, the lesson is practical: save the receipt from every setback, study it, and reinvest. The work will pay you back, not with guarantees, but with depth that cannot be faked and with the quiet authority of someone who has kept the faith.
James Lee Burke speaks from experience. His novel The Lost Get-Back Boogie was rejected 111 times over nine years before a university press finally published it; it went on to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. That long ordeal did not merely precede his success, it fed it. Burke’s fiction is saturated with hard weather, moral struggle, and the stubborn dignity of people who keep going. You can hear the echo of those years of refusal in the patience of his pacing, the refusal to write down to readers, the refusal to abandon flawed characters. The same world that told him no taught him where the true tensions lie, and that knowledge became part of his voice.
The line also carries an ethical charge. Dues imply responsibility, a debt owed to the craft and to the audience. Paying them keeps entitlement at bay and turns ambition into service. You do not pocket rejection as bitterness; you convert it into credibility. For anyone making things, the lesson is practical: save the receipt from every setback, study it, and reinvest. The work will pay you back, not with guarantees, but with depth that cannot be faked and with the quiet authority of someone who has kept the faith.
Quote Details
| Topic | Perseverance |
|---|
More Quotes by James
Add to List
