340 Quotes by Austin Kleon

If you want to change your life, change what you pay attention to. “We give things meaning by paying attention to them,” Jessa Crispin writes, “and so moving your attention from one thing to another can absolutely change your future.” “Attention is the most basic form of love,” wrote John Tarrant. When you pay attention to your life, it not only provides you with the material for your art, it also helps you fall in love with your life.

You have to remember that your work is something you do, not who you are.

Drawing is simply another way of seeing, which we don’t really do as adults,” says cartoonist Chris Ware. We’re all going around in a “cloud of remembrance and anxiety,” he says, and the act of drawing helps us live in the moment and concentrate on what’s really in front of us.

See something worth stealing? Put it in the swipe file. Need a little inspiration? Open up the swipe file. Newspaper reporters call this a “morgue file” – I like that name even better. Your morgue file is where you keep the dead things that you’ll later reanimate in your work.

We can stop asking what others can do for us, and start asking what we can do for others.

First, you have to figure out who to copy. Second, you have to figure out what to copy.

Try it: Instead of keeping a rejection file, keep a praise file. Use it sparingly – don’t get lost in past glory – but keep it around for when you need the lift.

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

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.