Austin Kleon Quotes

Enjoy your obscurity while it lasts.

What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.

Step 1: Wonder at something. Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you. You should wonder at the things nobody else is wondering about.

the worst troll is the one that lives in your head.

chew on one thinker-writer, activist, role model- you really love. Study everything there is to know about that thinker. Then find three people the thinker loved and find out everything about them. Repeat this as many times as you can. Climb up the tree as far as you can go. Once you built your tree, it's time to start your own branch.

We all love things that other people think are garbage. You have to have the courage to keep loving your garbage, because what makes us unique is the diversity and breadth of our influences, the unique ways in which we mix up the parts of culture others have deemed “high” and the “low.”

When you find things you genuinely enjoy, don’t let anyone else make you feel bad about it. Don’t feel guilty about the pleasure you take in the things you enjoy. Celebrate them.

Validation is for parking.

"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."

It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past.

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.

A wonderful flaw about human beings is that we’re incapable of making perfect copies. Our failure to copy our heroes is where we discover where our own thing lives. That is how we evolve.

You can’t be content with mastery; you have to push yourself to become a student again.

Don’t try to be hip or cool. Being open and honest about what you like is the best way to connect with people who like those things, too.

I think it’s good to have a lot of projects going at once so you can bounce between them. When you get sick of one project, move over to another, and when you’re sick of that one, move back to the project you left. Practice productive procrastination.

Nothing is more paralyzing than the idea of limitless possibilities.