Austin Kleon Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Austin Kleon.
Famous Quotes By Austin Kleon
If you just mimic the surface of somebody's work without understanding where they are coming from, your work will never be anything more than a knockoff. — Austin Kleon
The great thing about remote or dead masters is that they can't refuse you as an apprentice. You can learn whatever you want from them. They left their lesson plans in their work. — Austin Kleon
Pablo Picasso was notorious for sucking the energy out of the people he met. His granddaughter Marina claimed that he squeezed people like one of his tubes of oil paints. You's have a great time hanging out all day with Picasso, and then you's go home nervous and exhausted, and Picasso would go back to his studio and paint all night, using the energy he'd sucked out of you. — Austin Kleon
Conan O'Brien has talked about how comedians try to emulate their heroes, fall short, and end up doing their own thing. Johnny Carson tried to be Jack Benny but ended up Johnny Carson. David Letterman tried to copy Johnny Carson but ended up David Letterman. And Conan O'Brien tried to be David Letterman but ended up Conan O'Brien. In O'Brien's words, "It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique." Thank goodness. — Austin Kleon
The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes. - Annie Dillard — Austin Kleon
There's an intuition learned through our work. Teaching others doesn't mean they can just go out and replicate it. — Austin Kleon
Teaching people doesn't subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it. When you teach someone how to do your work, you are, in effect, generating more interest in your work. People feel closer to your work because you're letting them in on what you know. — Austin Kleon
Scenius." Under this model, great ideas are often birthed by a group of creative individuals - artists, curators, thinkers, theorists, and other tastemakers - who make up an "ecology of talent. — Austin Kleon
You're never "keeping it real" with your lack of punctuation and proofreading, you're keeping it unintelligible. — Austin Kleon
Work that only comes from the head isn't any good ... You need to find a way to bring your body into your work ... If we start going through the motions, if we strum a guitar, or shuffle sticky notes around a conference table, or start kneading clay, the motion kickstarts our brain into thinking. — Austin Kleon
There's a balance between what you want to give the world and what it needs. If you're lucky, your work is in the middle. — Austin Kleon
These days, most of us carry a fully functional multimedia studio around in our smartphones. — Austin Kleon
In fact, sharing your process might actually be most valuable if the products of your work aren't easily shared, — Austin Kleon
Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work effects how they value it. — Austin Kleon
To be "interest-ing" is to be curious and attentive, and to practice "the continual projection of interest." To put it more simply: If you want to be interesting, you have to be interested. — Austin Kleon
Keep your own list, or get an account with an email newsletter company like MailChimp and put a little sign-up widget on every page of your website. — Austin Kleon
The important thing is that you show your appreciation without expecting anything in return, and that you get new work out of the appreciation. — Austin Kleon
Strike all the adjectives from your bio. If you take photos, you're not an 'aspiring' photographer, you're not an 'amazing' photographer either. You're a photographer. Don't get cute. Don't brag. Just state the facts. — Austin Kleon
The right constraints can lead to your very best work. My favorite example? Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat with only 236 different words, so his editor bet him he couldn't write a book with only 50 different words. Dr. Seuss came back and won the bet with Green Eggs and Ham, one of the bestselling children's books of all time. — Austin Kleon
Writing a page each day doesn't seem like much, but do it for 365 days and you have enough to fill a novel. — Austin Kleon
First, you have to figure out who to copy. Second, you have to figure out what to copy. — Austin Kleon
The solution is really simple: Figure out what time you can carve out, what time you can steal, and stick to your routine. Do the work every day, no matter what. No holidays, no sick days. Don't stop. What you'll probably find is that the corollary to Parkinson's Law is usually true: Work gets done in the time available. — Austin Kleon
Neil Young sang, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." I say it's better to burn slow and see your grandkids. — Austin Kleon
Read deeply. Stay open. Continue to wonder. — Austin Kleon
If I'd waited to know who I was or what I was about before I started "being creative," well, I'd still be sitting around trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it's in the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are. — Austin Kleon
My motto for creativity-
And remember, STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST. — Austin Kleon
It's not that people are mean or cruel, they're just busy. — Austin Kleon
I had a professor in college who returned our graded essays, walked up to the chalkboard, and wrote in huge letters: "SO WHAT?" She threw the piece of chalk down and said, "Ask yourself that every time you turn in a piece of writing." It's a lesson I never forgot. — Austin Kleon
This is yet another trait of amateurs - they'll use whatever tools they can get their hands on to try to get their ideas into the world. — Austin Kleon
Today isn't just another day. Today I'll create something beautiful. — Austin Kleon
Amateurs are not afraid to make mistakes or look ridiculous in public. They're in love, so they don't hesitate to do work that others think of as silly or just plain stupid. — Austin Kleon
In the first act, you get your hero up a tree. The second act, you throw rocks at him. For the third act, you let him down."- George Abbott — Austin Kleon
You can't be content with mastery; you have to push yourself to become a student again. — Austin Kleon
Eat breakfast. Do some push-ups. Go for long walks. Get plenty of sleep. — Austin Kleon
The trick is not caring what EVERYBODY thinks of you and just caring about what the RIGHT people think of you. - Brian Michael Bendis — Austin Kleon
Be boring. (It's the only way to get work done.) — Austin Kleon
You'll never get that freedom back again once people start paying you attention, and especially not once they start paying you money. — Austin Kleon
You're only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with. — Austin Kleon
Write the kind of story you like best - write the story you want to read. — Austin Kleon
Dress for the job you want, not the job you have, and you have to start doing the work you want to be doing. — Austin Kleon
The worst troll is the one that lives in your head. — Austin Kleon
Like one of his heroes, Tom Waits, whenever Yorke feels like his songwriting is getting too comfortable or stale, he'll pick up an instrument he doesn't know how to play and try to write with it. This is yet another trait of amateurs - they'll use whatever tools they can get their hands on to try to get their ideas into the world. "I'm an artist, man," said John Lennon. "Give me a tuba, and I'll get you something out of it. — Austin Kleon
Nothing is original. It says it right there in the Bible. Ecclesiastes:
That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.
Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of previous ideas. — Austin Kleon
Don't worry about unity from piece to piece - what unifies all of your work is the fact that you made it. — Austin Kleon
Dig into almost every overnight success story and you'll find about a decade's worth of hard work and perseverance. — Austin Kleon
You should wonder at the things nobody else is wondering about. If everybody's wondering about apples, go wonder about oranges. — Austin Kleon
Having your work hated by certain people is a badge of honor. — Austin Kleon
Don't show your lunch or your latte; show your work. — Austin Kleon
Don't feel guilty about the pleasures you take in the things you enjoy. — Austin Kleon
The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life. - Jessica Hische — Austin Kleon
Don't say you don't have enough time. We're all busy, but we all get 24 hours a day. People often ask me, "How do you find the time for all this?" And I answer, "I look for it." You find time the same place you find spare change: in the nooks and crannies. You find it in the cracks between the big stuff - your commute, your lunch break, the few hours after your kids go to bed. You might have to miss an episode of your favorite TV show, you might have to miss an hour of sleep, but you can find the time if you look for it. I like to work while the world is sleeping, and share while the world is at work. — Austin Kleon
Art that only comes from the head isn't any good. — Austin Kleon
Maira Kalman says, Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind. — Austin Kleon
There is no misery in art. All art is about saying yes, and all art is about its own making. - John Currin — Austin Kleon
Show just a little bit of what you're working on. — Austin Kleon
When you get rid of old material, you push yourself further and come up with something better. — Austin Kleon
Writer David Foster Wallace said that he thought good nonfiction was a chance to "watch somebody reasonably bright but also reasonably average pay far closer attention and think at far more length about all sorts of different stuff than most of us have a chance to in our daily lives." Amateurs fit the same bill: They're just regular people who get obsessed by something and spend a ton of time thinking out loud about it. — Austin Kleon
The best way to vanquish your enemies on the Internet? Ignore them. — Austin Kleon
You don't get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see. You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. — Austin Kleon
You can't count on success; you can only leave open the possibility for it, and be ready to jump on and take the ride when it comes for you. — Austin Kleon
If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller. — Austin Kleon
A good pitch is set up in three acts: The first act is the past, the second act is the present, and the third act is the future. — Austin Kleon
Seeing yourself as part of a creative lineage will help you feel less alone as you start making your own stuff. I hang pictures of my favourite artists in my studio. They're like friendly ghosts. I can almost feel them pushing me forward as I'm hunched over my desk. — Austin Kleon
The only mofos in my circle are people that I can learn from. — Austin Kleon
Every artist gets asked the question, "Where do you get your ideas?" The honest artist answers, "I steal them. — Austin Kleon
All you need is a little space and a little time - a place to work, and some time to do it; a little self-imposed solitude and temporary captivity. — Austin Kleon
What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original. — Austin Kleon
Nobody is born with a style or a voice. We don't out of the womb knowing who we are. In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. We learn by copying. — Austin Kleon
Your brain gets too comfortable in your everyday surroundings. You need to make it uncomfortable. You need to spend some time in another land, among people that do things differently than you. Travel makes the world look new, and when the world looks new, our brains work harder. — Austin Kleon
Find the most talented person in the room, and if it's not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. Try to be helpful. — Austin Kleon
You can turn your flow into stock. — Austin Kleon
Comments outnumber ideas. — Austin Kleon
Be nice. (The world is a small town.) — Austin Kleon
Obituaries are like near-death experiences for cowards. — Austin Kleon
Mental scrapbooks form our tastes, and our tastes influence our work. — Austin Kleon
Usually, when we talk about creativity, it's about self-expression, which is great, but for work to be art or design, there has to be someone on the other end. The audience makes the work come alive. — Austin Kleon
Validation is for parking. — Austin Kleon
Words matter. Artists love to trot out the tired line, "My work speaks for itself," but the truth is, our work doesn't speak for itself. — Austin Kleon
Life is a lonely business — Austin Kleon
It's so important to have a hobby. A hobby is something creative that's just for you. You don't try to make money or get famous off it, you just do it because it makes you happy. A hobby is something that gives you but doesn't take. — Austin Kleon
Don't think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine. — Austin Kleon
If you look to artists who've managed to achieve lifelong careers, you detect the same pattern: They all have been able to persevere, regardless of success or failure. — Austin Kleon
The computer brings out the uptight perfectionist in us - we start editing ideas before we have them. — Austin Kleon
So go on, get angry. But keep your mouth shut and go do your work. — Austin Kleon
Complain about the way other people make software by making software. — Austin Kleon
There isn't a move that's a new move. The basketball star Kobe Bryant has admitted that all of his moves on the court were stolen from watching tapes of his heroes. But initially, when Bryant stole a lot of those moves, he realized he couldn't completely pull them off because he didn't have the same body type as the guys he was thieving from. He had to adapt the moves to make them his own. — Austin Kleon
Imitation is about copying. Emulation is when imitation goes one step further, breaking through into your own thing. — Austin Kleon
Always be reading. Go to the library. There's magic in being surrounded by books. Get lost in the stacks. Read bibliographies. It's not the book you start with, it's the book that book leads you to. Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Filmmaker John Waters has said, "Nothing is more important than an unread library." Don't worry about doing research. Just search. — Austin Kleon
Genealogy of ideas. You don't get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see. — Austin Kleon
Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by. — Austin Kleon
It's in the act of making things that we figure out who we are. — Austin Kleon
Copying is about reverse-engineering. — Austin Kleon
Ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them — Austin Kleon
One thing I've learned in my brief career: It's the side projects that really take off. By side projects I mean the stuff that you thought was just messing around. Stuff that's just play. That's actually the good stuff. That's when the magic happens. — Austin Kleon
The biggest task in the morning is to try to keep my headspace from being invaded by the outside world. — Austin Kleon