Austin Kleon Quotes

When you first get started, there's usually a big gap between what you are and what you want to be. 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.

If there was a secret formula for becoming known, I would give it to you. But there's only one not-so-secret formula that I know: Do good work and share it with people.

It is only when you and I add the burden of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow, that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives men mad. It is remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday or the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us therefore do our best to live but one day at a time.

The only thing we can really control is what we spend our days on. What we work on and how hard we work on it. It might seem like a stretch, but I really think the best thing you can do if you want to make art is to pretend you're starring in your own remake of Groundhog Day: Yesterday's over, tomorrow may never come, there's just today and what you can do with it.

The world is changing at such a rapid rate that it’s turning us all into amateurs. Even for professionals, the best way to flourish is to retain an amateur’s spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown.

Whether you share it or not, documenting and recording your process as you go along has its own rewards:

Share something small every day.

Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want — that just kills creativity.

Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it.

Copying is about reverse-engineering.

In O’Brien’s words, “It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.

Un trabajo te pone en el camino de otras personas. Aprende de ellas, roba de ellas. Yo he intentado trabajar para aprender cosas que me sirvan más adelante; mi trabajo en una biblioteca me enseñó cómo investigar; cuando trabajé como diseñador web, aprendí a hacer páginas de internet; y en mi trabajo como copywriter aprendí a vender cosas.

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.

Writer Gina Trapani has pointed out three prime spots to turn off our brains and take a break from our connected lives: • Commute. A moving train or subway car is the perfect time to write, doodle, read, or just stare out the window. (If you commute by car, audiobooks are a great way to safely tune out.) A commute happens twice a day, and it nicely separates our work life from our home life. • Exercise. Using our body relaxes our mind, and when our mind gets relaxed, it opens up to having new thoughts. Jump on the treadmill and let your mind go. If you’re like me and you hate exercise, get a dog — dogs won’t let you get away with missing a day. • Nature. Go to a park. Take a hike. Dig in your garden. Get outside in the fresh air. Disconnect from anything and everything electronic. It’s very important to separate your work from the rest of your life.

Nothing is more important than an unread library.” Don’t worry about doing research. Just search.