340 Quotes by Austin Kleon

These are the people I look to for inspiration. The people who found the thing that made them feel alive and who kept themselves alive by doing it. The people who planted their seeds, tended to themselves, and grew into something lasting. I want to be one of them. I want to make octogenarian painter David Hockney’s words my personal motto: “I’ll go on until I fall over.

Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it. When you teach someone how to do your work, you are, in effect, generating more interest in your work. People feel closer to your work because you’re letting them in on what you know.

When people realize they’re being listened to, they tell you things.” – Richard Ford.

If you feel like you have two or three real passions, don’t pick and choose between them. Don’t discard. Keep all your passions in your life.

In the end, merely imitating your heroes is not flattering them. Transforming their work into something of your own is how you flatter them. Adding something to the world that only you can add.

The computer brings out the uptight perfectionist in us – we start editing ideas before we have them.

Marcel Duchamp said, “I don’t believe in art. I believe in artists.” This is actually a pretty good method for studying – if you try to devour the history of your discipline all at once, you’ll choke.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.” – Steve Jobs.

The trouble with imaginative people is that we’re good at picturing the worst that could happen to us. Fear is often just the imagination taking a wrong turn.