Austin Kleon Quotes

There is a kind of fallout that happens when you leave college. The classroom is a wonderful, if artificial, place: Your professor gets paid to pay attention to your ideas, and your classmates are paying to pay attention to your ideas. Never again in your life will you have such a captive audience.

When I get busy, I get stupid.” Ain’t that the truth. Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing. I get some of my best ideas when I’m bored,

School is one thing, education is another. The two don't always overlap. Whether you are in school or not, it is always your job to get yourself an education.

Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple. Don’t

The trouble with imaginative people is that we’re good at picturing the worst that could happen to us.

More than 400 years ago, Michel de Montaigne, in his essay “On Experience,” wrote, “In my opinion, the most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles . . . and the most marvelous examples.

When I’m working on my art, I don’t feel like Odysseus. I feel more like Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill. When I’m working, I don’t feel like Luke Skywalker. I feel more like Phil Connors in the movie Groundhog Day.

El mejor consejo no es que escribas lo que sabes, sino lo que te gusta. Escribe el tipo de historia que más te gusta, la historia que quieres leer. El mismo principio aplica para tu vida y para tu carrera profesional: cuando no sepas cuál es tu siguiente paso, sólo pregúntate: “¿Qué será una mejor historia?

Le he robado movimientos geniales a los mejores jugadores. Sólo trato de que quienes vinieron antes que yo se sientan orgullosos, porque yo he aprendido mucho de ellos. Todo es en nombre del juego. Es algo mucho más grande que yo.” — Kobe Bryant

Teach what you know.

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. If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.

Once a day, after you’ve done your day’s work, go back to your documentation and find one little piece of your process that you can share.

Once a day, after you’ve done your day’s work, go back to your documentation and find one little piece of your process that you can share. Where you are in your process will determine what that piece is. If you’re in the very early stages, share your influences and what’s inspiring you. If you’re in the middle of executing a project, write about your methods or share works in progress. If you’ve just completed a project, show the final product, share scraps from the cutting-room floor, or write about what you learned.

"Don't wait until you know who you are to get started. If I'd waited to know who I was or what I was about before I started "being creative," well, I'd 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. You're ready. Start making stuff."

When you find things you genuinely enjoy, don’t let anyone else make you feel bad about it.