Austin Kleon Quotes

The only way to find your voice is to use it. It’s hardwired, built into you. Talk about the things you love. Your voice will follow.

Not everybody will get it. People will misinterpret you and what you do. They might even call you names. So get comfortable with being misunderstood, disparaged, or ignored -- the trick is to be too busy doing your work to care.

Usually, when we talk about creativity, it's about self-expression, which is great, but for work to be art or design, there has to be someone on the other end. The audience makes the work come alive.

Don't wait until you know who you are to get started.

Be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else--that's how you'll get ahead.

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.

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

You’re only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with.

The thing is: It takes a lot of energy to be creative. You don't have that energy if you waste it on other stuff.

Don't worry about doing research. Just search.

You can't find your voice if you don't use it.

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

Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.

You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love."

Your brain gets too comfortable in your everyday surroundings. You need to make it uncomfortable. You need to spend some time in another land, among people that do things differently than you. Travel makes the world look new, and when the world looks new, our brains work harder.

Write the book you want to read

Read deeply. Stay open. Continue to wonder.

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

There's a balance between what you want to give the world and what it needs. If you're lucky, your work is in the middle.

Travel makes the world look new, and when the world looks new, our brains work harder.

Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Filmmaker John Waters has said, "Nothing is more important than an unread library."

If you’re worried about giving your secrets away, you can share your dots without connecting them.

The only way to find your voice is to use it

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. I think the same thing is true of idea incomes. You’re only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with.

You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life.

The biggest task in the morning is to try to keep my headspace from being invaded by the outside world.

Genealogy of ideas. You don’t get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see.

Be boring. (It’s the only way to get work done.)

The minute you learn something, turn around and teach it to others.

The artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there's a difference: Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love.

Be nice. (The world is a small town.)

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

In order to be found, you have to be findable.

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

Unless you are actually a ninja, a guru, or a rock star, don't ever use any of those terms in your bio. Ever.

Dig into almost every overnight success story and you’ll find about a decade’s worth of hard work and perseverance.

The best advice is not to write what you know, it's to write what you like.

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.

Art is theft”) and Igor Stravinsky (“Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal”), I’ve always stolen from the people I admire – not plagiarized, mind you, but stolen bits of ideas and stylistic influences. If you steal widely enough, after all, your models are inevitably changed and the result is in the end completely yours. Kleon cites André Gide to this point, in a quotation I love: “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.

Become a documentarian of what you do.

We're always being told 'find your voice.' When I was younger, I never really knew what this meant. I used to worry a lot about voice, wondering if I had my own. But now I realize that the only way to find your voice is to use it. It's hardwired, built into you. Talk about the things you love. Your voice will follow.

If we're free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running from it.

You're ready. Start making stuff.

If I'd waited to know who I was or what I was about before I started "being creative," well, I'd still 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.

Amateurs know that contributing something is better than contributing nothing.

That’s the thing you have to understand about the whole process of art (or the work that we do) – you’re only half of the equation. It’s an interaction between you and the person who’s going to experience the work. The person who’s going to experience the work is bringing just as much to it and is just as important as you are.

Inertia is the death of creativity

The best way to get started on the path of sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others.

Do good work and share it with people.

Copying is about reverse-engineering.