Austin Kleon Quotes

You can’t count on success; you can only leave open the possibility for it, and be ready to jump on and take the ride when it comes for you.

We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.” — John Cleese

It helps to live around interesting people, and not necessarily people who do what you do. I feel a little incestuous when I hang out with only writers and artists, so I enjoy the many filmmakers, musicians, and tech geeks who live in Austin. Oh, and food. The food should be good. You have to find a place that feeds you — creatively, socially, spiritually, and literally.

Go make that stuff. The manifesto is this: Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use — do the work you want to see done.

Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.

You have to find a place that feeds you — creatively, socially, spiritually, and literally.

If you’re out of ideas, wash the dishes. Take a really long walk. Stare at a spot on the wall for as long as you can. As the artist Maira Kalman says, “Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind.

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.

There’s an economic theory out there that if you take the incomes of your five closest friends and average them, the resulting number will be pretty close to your own income.

Nothing is more paralyzing than the idea of limitless possibilities. The idea that you can do anything is absolutely terrifying.

Do good work and share it with people.

Filmmaker John Waters has said, “Nothing is more important than an unread library.

Write the kind of story you like best — write the story you want to read.

Teach what you know.

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.” — William Ralph Inge