Austin Kleon Quotes

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, yo just do it because it makes you happy. A hobby is something that gives you but doesn't take.

The best way to get approval is to not need it.

Distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.

Today isn't just another day. Today I'll create something beautiful.

The computer is really good for editing your ideas, and it’s really good for getting your ideas ready for publishing out into the world, but it’s not really good for generating ideas.

Learn to speak. Learn to write. Use spell-check. You’re never “keeping it real” with your lack of proofreading and punctuation, you’re keeping it unintelligible.

All the world’s a stage. Creative work is a kind of theater. The stage is your studio, your desk, or your workstation. The costume is your outfit — your painting pants, your business suit, or that funny hat that helps you think. The props are your materials, your tools, and your medium. The script is just plain old time. An hour here, or an hour there — just time measured out for things to happen.

The best way to vanquish your enemies on the Internet? Ignore them.

You don't put yourself online only because you have something to say - you can put yourself online to find something to say.

What to copy is a little bit trickier. Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style.

You just have to be as generous as you can, but selfish enough to get your work done

"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

Take time to be bored. One time I heard a coworker say, “When I get busy, I get stupid.

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.

Having your work hated by certain people is a badge of honor.