Top 280 Austin Kleon Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “When people give advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past.”

— Austin Kleon

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

— Austin Kleon

53. “The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.”

— Austin Kleon

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

— Austin Kleon

55. “The writer Wilson Mizner said if you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research. I.”

— Austin Kleon

56. “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.”

— Austin Kleon

57. “Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple.”

— Austin Kleon

58. “All the world’s a stage. Creative work is a kind of theater. The stage is your studio, your desk, or your workstation. The costume is your outfit – your painting pants, your business suit, or that funny hat that helps you think. The props are your materials, your tools, and your medium. The script is just plain old time. An hour here, or an hour there – just time measured out for things to happen.”

— Austin Kleon

59. “Social media sites are the perfect place to share daily updates. Don’t worry about being on every platform; pick and choose based on what you do and the people you’re trying to reach.”

— Austin Kleon

60. “The best advice is not to write what you know, it’s to write what you like.”

— Austin Kleon

61. “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.”

— Austin Kleon

62. “Take time to be bored. One time I heard a coworker say, “When I get busy, I get stupid.”

— Austin Kleon

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

— Austin Kleon

64. “Art that only comes from the head isn’t any good. Watch any good musician and you’ll see what I mean.”

— Austin Kleon

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

— Austin Kleon

66. “You got to make your case.” – Kanye West.”

— Austin Kleon

67. “In the end, creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in, it’s the things we choose to leave out.”

— Austin Kleon

68. “Nothing is more paralyzing than the idea of limitless possibilities. The idea that you can do anything is absolutely terrifying.”

— Austin Kleon

69. “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.”

— Austin Kleon

70. “Paul McCartney has said, “I emulated Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis. We all did.”

— Austin Kleon

71. “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

— Austin Kleon

72. “The Vampire Test. It’s a simple way to know who you should let in and out of your life. If, after hanging out with someone you feel worn out and depleted, that person is a vampire. If, after hanging out with someone you still feel full of energy, that person is not a vampire. Of course, The Vampire Test works on many things in our lives, not just people – you can apply it to jobs, hobbies, places, etc.”

— Austin Kleon

73. “Yesterday’s over, tomorrow may never come, there’s just today and what you can do with it.”

— Austin Kleon

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

— Austin Kleon

75. “Everybody loves a good story, but good storytelling doesn’t come easy to everybody. It’s a skill that takes a lifetime to master. So study the great stories and then go find some of your own. Your stories will get better the more you tell them.”

— Austin Kleon

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

— Austin Kleon

77. “You know that phrase, “going through the motions”? That’s what’s so great about creative work: If we just start going through the motions, if we strum a guitar, or shuffle sticky notes around a conference table, or start kneading clay, the motion kickstarts our brain into thinking.”

— Austin Kleon

78. “Conan O’Brien has talked about how comedians try to emulate their heroes, fall short, and end up doing their own thing. Johnny Carson tried to be Jack Benny but ended up Johnny Carson. David Letterman tried to copy Johnny Carson but ended up David Letterman. And Conan O’Brien tried to be David Letterman but ended up Conan O’Brien. In O’Brien’s words, “It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.” Thank goodness.”

— Austin Kleon

79. “Neil Young sang, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” I say it’s better to burn slow and see your grandkids.”

— Austin Kleon

80. “What to copy is a little bit trickier. Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style.”

— Austin Kleon

81. “The best way to get approval is to not need it.”

— Austin Kleon

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

— Austin Kleon

83. “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. “It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.” – Mark Twain.”

— Austin Kleon

84. “I’m not going to sit here and wait for things to happen, I’m going to make them happen, and if people think I’m an idiot I don’t care.”

— Austin Kleon

85. “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.”

— Austin Kleon

86. “Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing. I get some of my best ideas when I’m bored, which is why I never take my shirts to the cleaners. I love ironing my shirts-it’s so boring, I almost always get good ideas. If you’re out of ideas, wash the dishes. Take really long walk. Stare at a spot on the wall for as long as you can. As the artist Maira Kalman says, “Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind.”

— Austin Kleon

87. “Plagiarism is trying to pass someone else’s work off as your own. Copying is about reverse-engineering.”

— Austin Kleon

88. “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.”

— Austin Kleon

89. “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.”

— Austin Kleon

90. “Having your work hated by certain people is a badge of honor.”

— Austin Kleon

91. “Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.” – Derek Sivers.”

— Austin Kleon

92. “It’s not the book you start with, it’s the book that book leads you to.”

— Austin Kleon

93. “You can’t go looking for validation from external sources. Once you put your work into the world, you have no control over the way people will react to it.”

— Austin Kleon

94. “Maira Kalman says, “Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind.”

— Austin Kleon

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

— Austin Kleon

96. “If you ask yourself ‘What’s the best thing that happened today?’ It actually forces a certain kind of cheerful retrospection that pulls up from the recent past things to write about that you wouldn’t otherwise think about.”

— Austin Kleon

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

— Austin Kleon

98. “Work that only comes from the head isn’t any good... You need to find a way to bring your body into your work... If we start going through the motions, if we strum a guitar, or shuffle sticky notes around a conference table, or start kneading clay, the motion kickstarts our brain into thinking.”

— Austin Kleon

99. “There are no rules, of course. Life is an art, not a science. Your mileage may vary. Take what you need and leave the rest.”

— Austin Kleon

100. “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.”

— Austin Kleon