Rejection Quotes

“Isn’t that the greatest tragedy? When someone rejects us, no matter how they abuse our love, we hope against reason that somehow they will come back to us.”
― Suzanne E. Anderson, Mrs. Tuesday's Departure

“Chase your dreams until you catch them...and then dream, catch, and dream again! ”
― Dee Marie, Sons of Avalon: Merlin's Prophecy

“'Shoot the wounded... what we do to people who are the most vulnerable... we 'shoot the wounded.' As if they haven't suffered enough, we add to it by gossiping and treating hurt people like outcasts." ..."I think we killed Ronnie's spirit... Instead of coming alongside her and supporting her through this, I failed her...”
― Lynn Dove, Shoot the Wounded

“Even if I now saw you
only once,
I would long for you
through worlds,
worlds.”
― Izumi Shikibu, The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan

“Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.”
― Audre Lorde

“Your suffering needs to be respected. Don't try to ignore the hurt, because it is real. Just let the hurt soften you instead of hardening you. Let the hurt open you instead of closing you. Let the hurt send you looking for those who will accept you instead of hiding from those who reject you.”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people. As members of such an economy, we have all been programmed to respond to the human difference between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals. As a result, those differences have been misnamed and misused in the service of separation and confusion.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“God whispered, "You endured a lot. For that I am truly sorry, but grateful. I needed you to struggle to help so many. Through that process you would grow into who you have now become. Didn't you know that I gave all my struggles to my favorite children? One only needs to look at the struggles given to your older brother Jesus to know how important you have been to me.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“[Eating disorders] are a wonderful tool for helping you reject others before they can reject you. Example: You're at a party. The popular girls are there. You know you can never be as cool as they are, but when one of the pops a potato chip into her mouth or chooses real Coke over Diet, for that moment you are better”
― Stacy Pershall

“I don't know whether to cry or scream or do both. It feels like I've done more than enough of both. And it feels like I haven't done enough.

And at some point, I know I'm going to have to crawl out of this bed and pick up the pieces but right now, it can be just me. Just me, these four walls, and this bed.

The universe doesn't have to exist outside this bedroom, and that's perfectly okay.”
― Mason Deaver, I Wish You All the Best

“The more you try to impress, the more you become depressed, and the more they get tired of your coercion. It doesn't make them love you, instead, they'll see you as a little child, trying to draw a senseless picture on a piece of paper, begging people to look at it and admire it by force. You can persuade someone to look at your face, but you can't persuade them to see the beauty therein.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“I know that when a door closes, it can feel like all doors are closing. A rejection letter can feel like everyone will reject us. But a closed door leads to clarity. It's really an arrow. Because we cannot go through that door, we will go somewhere else. That somewhere else is your true life.”
― Tama J. Kieves

“As a matter of fact, she has refused to marry me.”
“So when's the wedding?” Ramsey asked.”
― Julie Garwood, Ransom

“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, Shirley

“The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“A balanced inner calmness radiates from a peaceful centre. It neither craves others' approval nor rejects others' presence. It neither pulls towards nor pushes away. It has a reverent attitude towards life and all its inhabitants.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“As empaths, our high level of sensitivity means that we are prone to feeling like eternal outsiders who are in the world but not quite of the world.”
― Aletheia Luna, Awakened Empath: The Ultimate Guide to Emotional, Psychological and Spiritual Healing

“There is no doubt; even a rejection can be the shadow of a caress”.”
― José Ortega y Gasset

“Every broken heart has screamed at one time or another, "I want to know why!”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Many of us live in denial of who we truly are because we fear losing someone or something-and there are times that if we don't rock the boat, too often the one we lose is ourselves...It feels good to be accepted, loved, and approved of by others, but often the membership fee to belong to that club is far too high of a price to pay.”
― Dennis Merritt Jones

“Nobody's talking to me, but nobody's hassling me either. I guess you can't have everything.”
― Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice

“Have you had a failure or rejection? You could get bitter. That's one way to deal with it. Or...you could just get BETTER. What do you think?”
― Destiny Booze

“He started to estrange her...
And they became strangers
Who knew each other's heart,
So broken as they drifted apart.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, Pierrot & Columbine

“Sometimes I think about the sly, flickering line that separates being spared from being rejected. Sometimes I think of the ancient gods who demanded that their sacrifices be fearless and without blemish, and I wonder whether, whoever or whatever took Peter and Jamie away, it decided I wasn't good enough.”
― Tana French, In the Woods

“His life had been spent pursuing excellence and amassing a great fortune, but now that it was ending, there was no one he was inclined to share it with.”
― Steven Decker, One More Life to Live

“Well, it’s like this, Edward. There is a cosmic certainty to things. An order. There are places, like Earth, where time passes. People live, then die. And there are places like this, outside of time, where existence goes on forever.”
― Steven Decker, One More Life to Live

“When we get hurt, our bodies immediately start trying to heal that hurt. This works for emotions as well. If we were scarred socially, by an incident of rejection or bullying, we immediately start trying to heal. Like pus comes out of wounds, emotions flow from psychological wounds.

And what do we really need at that moment? When we are out of that dangerous situation that scarred us, and we become triggered by some little thing - what do we need? Do we need someone to look at us and say, "Wow, you're really sensitive, aren't you?" or "Hey, man, I didn't mean it like that."? Do we need someone to justify their actions or tell us to take it easy, because the situation didn't really require such a reaction?

And, from ourselves, do we really need four pounds of judgment with liberal helpings of shame? Do we need to run away, to suppress, to hate our "over-sensitivity" to situations that seem innocuous to others?

No. We do not need all of these versions of rejection of a natural healing process. You would not feel shame over a wound doing what it must do to heal, nor would you shame another. So why do we do this to our heart wounds? Why do we do it to ourselves? To others?

Next time some harmless situation triggers you or someone around you into an intense emotion - realize it's an attempt at emotional healing. Realize the danger is no longer there, but don't suppress the healing of old dangers and old pains. Allow the pain. Don't react, but don't repress. Embrace the pain. Embrace the pain of others.

Like this, we have some chance at healing the endless cycles of generational repression and suppression that are rolling around in our society.

Fall open. Break open. Sit with others' openness. Let love be your medicine.”
― Vironika Tugaleva

“Rejection is more valuable than inaction. All that I have learned until now has been because of rejections. Inaction didn’t teach me a thing.”
― Neeraj Agnihotri, Procrasdemon - The Artist's Guide to Liberation from Procrastination

“He glanced over at me. 'Scared? Of Reggie? What, she thinks he might force her to give up caffeine for real or something?'
'No,' I said.
'Of what, then?' he asked.
I paused, only just now realizing that the subject was hitting a little close to home. 'You know, getting hurt. Putting herself out there, opening up to someone.'
'Yeah,' he said, adding some cheese straws to the car, but risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.'
I picked up a box of cheese straws, examinig it. 'Yeah,' I said. 'But it's not all about chance, either.'
'Meaning what?' he asked, taking the box from me and adding the rest.
'Just that, if you know ahead of time that there might an issue that dooms everything- like, say, you're incredibly controlling and independent, like Harriet- maybe it's better to acknowledge that and not waste your time. Or someone else's.”
― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“And as a few strokes on the nose will make a puppy head shy, so a few rebuffs will make a boy shy all over. But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy. And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist—or, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden