Quotes from Austin Kleon

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

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

Write the book you want to read

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

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

Keep all your passions in your life.

Establishing and keeping a routine can be even more important than having a lot of time.

Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing.

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."

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.

Marriage is two people in love standing in the same bathroom

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Show your work, and when the right people show up, pay close attention to them, because they'll have a lot to show you.

There's an intuition learned through our work. Teaching others doesn't mean they can just go out and replicate it.

It sounds a little extreme, but in this day and age, if your work isn't online, it doesn't exist.

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.

So go on, get angry. But keep your mouth shut and go do your work.