Interesting thing about JRR Tolkien:

So, there's this famous letter of his, where a German publisher in 1938 asks him to prove he is of aryan origin. He refuses, saying "I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honorable;

and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine."

He then sent the German publisher a letter refusing to even talk about the Aryan-ness matter.

This much I'd known. What makes it more impressive is that he'd written a different letter about 1.5 months earlier to his publisher mentioning that his financial situation was bad, and he couldn't work on more Hobbit stuff because he had to grade exams to make ends meet.

In other words, he wasn't just saying no. He was giving up the money that'd come with a foreign deal at a time when he really needed it.