Austin Kleon Quotes

Your attention is one of the most valuable things you possess, which is why everyone wants to steal it from you. First you must protect it, and then you must point it in the right direction. [...] What you choose to pay attention to is the stuff your life and work will be made of.

The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” — Jessica Hische

Visual artists tend to like Tumblr, Instagram, or Facebook.

Don’t be afraid to be an early adopter — jump on a new platform and see if there’s something interesting you can do with it.

The minute you learn something, turn around and teach it to others. Share your reading list. Point to helpful reference materials. [...] Take people step-by-step through part of your process.

Always be reading. Go to the library. There's magic in being surrounded by books. Get lost in the stacks. Read bibiliographies. It's not the book you start with, it's the book that book leads you to.

In the meantime, if you're not into the world you live in, you can build your own world around you.[...]Surround yourself with books and objects that you love. Tape things up on the wall. Create your own world.

chew on one thinker-writer, activist, role model- you really love. Study everything there is to know about that thinker. Then find three people the thinker loved and find out everything about them. Repeat this as many times as you can. Climb up the tree as far as you can go. Once you built your tree, it's time to start your own branch.

These are the people I look to for inspiration. The people who found the thing that made them feel alive and who kept themselves alive by doing it. The people who planted their seeds, tended to themselves, and grew into something lasting. I want to be one of them. I want to make octogenarian painter David Hockney’s words my personal motto: “I’ll go on until I fall over.

The trouble with imaginative people is that we're good at picturing the worst that could happen to us. Fear is often just the imagination taking a wrong turn.

Complain about the way other people make software by making software.” — Andre Torrez

Audiences not only want to stumble across great work, but they, too, long to be creative and part of the creative process. By letting go of our egos and sharing our process, we allow for the possibility of people having an ongoing connection with us and our work, which helps us move more of our product.

Books are made out of books.

When you teach someone how to do your work, you are, in effect, generating more interest in your work.

A lot of social media is just about typing into boxes.