Home > Work > Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
101 " Writing a page each day doesn’t seem like much, but do it for 365 days and you have enough to fill a novel. "
― Austin Kleon , Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
102 " Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes. "
103 " Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find your self.” —Yohji Yamamoto "
104 " Imitation is about copying. Emulation is when imitation goes one step further, breaking through into your own thing. "
105 " Whenever you're at a loss for what move to make next, just ask yourself, "What would make a betterstory? "
106 " 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. "
107 " Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want—that just kills creativity.” —Jack White "
108 " The best advice is not to write what you know, it’s to write what you like. Write the kind of story you like best—write the story you want to read. The same principle applies to your life and your career: Whenever you’re at a loss for what move to make next, just ask yourself, “What would make a better story? "
109 " When I get busy, I get stupid. "
110 " Inertia is the death of creativity. You have to stay in the groove. When you get out of the groove, you start to dread the work, because you know it’s going to suck for a while—it’s going to suck until you get back into the flow. "
111 " The important thing is that you show your appreciation without expecting anything in return, and that you get new work out of the appreciation. "
112 " There isn’t a move that’s a new move.” The basketball star Kobe Bryant has admitted that all of his moves on the court were stolen from watching tapes of his heroes. But initially, when Bryant stole a lot of those moves, he realized he couldn’t completely pull them off because he didn’t have the same body type as the guys he was thieving from. He had to adapt the moves to make them his own. "
113 " Enjoy your obscurity while it lasts. Use it. "
114 " The thing is, you can cut off a couple passions and only focus on one, but after a while, you’ll start to feel phantom limb pain. "
115 " Seeing yourself as part of a creative lineage will help you feel less alone as you start making your own stuff. I hang pictures of my favourite artists in my studio. They're like friendly ghosts. I can almost feel them pushing me forward as I'm hunched over my desk. "
116 " Nobody is born with a style or a voice. We don’t come out of the womb knowing who we are. In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. We learn by copying. "
117 " 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. "
118 " What to copy is a little bit trickier. Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes. "
119 " 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. "
120 " 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 our idea incomes. You’re only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with. "