Show Your Work! Quotes

“Being open and honest about what you like is the best way to connect with people who like those things, too.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“More than 400 years ago, Michel de Montaigne, in his essay “On Experience,” wrote, “In my opinion, the most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles . . . and the most marvelous examples.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“You should always share the work of others as if it were your own, treating it with respect and care.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Don’t be creepy. Don’t be a jerk. Don’t waste people’s time. Don’t ask too much.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Watching amateurs at work can also inspire us to attempt the work ourselves. “I saw the Sex Pistols,” said New Order frontman Bernard Sumner. “They were terrible. . . . I wanted to get up and be terrible with them.” Raw enthusiasm is contagious.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Imagine if your next boss didn’t have to read your résumé because he already reads your blog.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“If you want followers, be someone worth following.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“The stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act,” writes Clay Shirky in his book Cognitive Surplus. “On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Whenever Picasso learned how to do something, he abandoned it.” —Milton Glaser When”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“The minute you stop wanting something you get it.” —Andy Warhol Chain-smoking”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“You just have to be as generous as you can, but selfish enough to get your work done.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“There is no misery in art. All art is about saying yes, and all art is about its own making.” —John Currin”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.” —Walt Disney Some”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“remember what writer Colin Marshall says: “Compulsive avoidance of embarrassment is a form of suicide.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Books are made out of books.” — Cormac McCarthy Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From David Byrne, How Music Works Mike Monteiro, Design Is a Job Kio Stark, Don’t Go Back to School Ian Svenonius, Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group Sidney Lumet, Making Movies P.T. Barnum, The Art of Money Getting”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“You got to make your case.” —Kanye West”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“It’s for this reason that I read the obituaries every morning. Obituaries are like near-death experiences for cowards.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“One more thing: Unless you are actually a ninja, a guru, or a rock star, don’t ever use any of those terms in your bio. Ever.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“A good pitch is set up in three acts: The first act is the past, the second act is the present, and the third act is the future.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller. You need to know what a good story is and how to tell one.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“The number one rule of the Internet: People are lazy. If you don’t include a link, no one can click it. Attribution without a link online borders on useless: 99.9 percent of people are not going to bother Googling someone’s name.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.” —Derek Sivers”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“There’s no bouncer, no gatekeeper, and no barrier to entering these scenes: You don’t have to be rich, you don’t have to be famous, and you don’t have to have a fancy résumé or a degree from an expensive school. Online, everyone—the artist and the curator, the master and the apprentice, the expert and the amateur—has the ability to contribute something.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“It sounds a little extreme, but in this day and age, if your work isn’t online, it doesn’t exist. We all have the opportunity to use our voices, to have our say, but so many of us are wasting it. If you want people to know about what you do and the things you care about, you have to share.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Words matter. Artists love to trot out the tired line, “My work speaks for itself,” but the truth is, our work doesn’t speak for itself.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Be ambitious. Keep yourself busy. Think bigger. Expand your audience. Don’t hobble yourself in the name of “keeping it real,” or “not selling out.” Try new things.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Overnight success is a myth. Dig into almost every overnight success story and you’ll find about a decade’s worth of hard work and perseverance.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered