the writing business

a couple of quotes supplied by Roger Hall:

Seventeen publishers rejected the manuscript, at which time we knew we had something pretty hot.
Kinky Friedman

If you asked someone, "Can you play the violin?" and he says "I don't know; I haven't tried, perhaps I can," you laugh at him. Whereas about writing, people always say: I don't know. I haven't tried," as though one only had to try and one would become a writer.
Tolstoy