Austin Kleon Quotes

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.

Whenever life gets overwhelming, go back to chapter one of this book and think about your days. Try your best to fill them in ways that get you a little closer to where you want to be. Go easy on yourself and take your time. Worry less about getting things done. Worry more about things worth doing. Worry less about being a great artist. Worry more about being a good human being who makes art. Worry less about making a mark. Worry more about leaving things better than you found them.

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.

Yesterday’s over, tomorrow may never come, there’s just today and what you can do with it.

if you want to be a writer, you have to be a reader first.

It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.” Thank goodness.

The trick is to find a day job that pays decently, doesn’t make you want to vomit, and leaves you with enough energy to make things in your spare time. Good day jobs aren’t necessarily easy to find, but they’re out there.

Plagiarism is trying to pass someone else's work off as your own. Copying is about reverse-engineering.

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 phone gives us a lot but it takes away three key elements of discovery: loneliness, uncertainty, and boredom. Those have always been where creative ideas come from.” — Lynda Barry

Our failure to copy our heroes is where we discover where our own thing lives. That is how we evolve.

Writing a page a day doesn't seem like much, but do it for 365 days and you have enough to fill a novel.

The writer Wilson Mizner said if you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research.

Let go of the thing that you’re trying to be (the noun), and focus on the actual work you need to be doing (the verb).

Even for professionals, the best way to flourish is to retain an amateur’s spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown.