Show Your Work! Quotes

“Wunderkammern, a “wonder chamber,” or a “cabinet of curiosities” in your house—a room filled with rare and remarkable objects that served as a kind of external display of your thirst for knowledge of the world.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Small things, over time, can get big.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“if you could walk around like that all the time, to really have that awareness that it’s actually going to end. That’s the trick.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Find a scenius, pay attention to what others are sharing, and then start taking note of what they’re not sharing. Be on the lookout for voids that you can fill with your own efforts, no matter how bad they are at first.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Writer Gina Trapani has pointed out three prime spots to turn off our brains and take a break from our connected lives: • Commute. A moving train or subway car is the perfect time to write, doodle, read, or just stare out the window. (If you commute by car, audiobooks are a great way to safely tune out.) A commute happens twice a day, and it nicely separates our work life from our home life. • Exercise. Using our body relaxes our mind, and when our mind gets relaxed, it opens up to having new thoughts. Jump on the treadmill and let your mind go. If you’re like me and you hate exercise, get a dog—dogs won’t let you get away with missing a day. • Nature. Go to a park. Take a hike. Dig in your garden. Get outside in the fresh air. Disconnect from anything and everything electronic. It’s very important to separate your work from the rest of your life.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Do you have a troll problem? Use the block button on social media sites. Delete nasty comments. My wife is fond of saying, “If someone took a dump in your living room, you wouldn’t let it sit there, would you?” Nasty comments are the same—they should be scooped up and thrown in the trash.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“You have to remember that your work is something you do, not who you are. This is especially hard for artists to accept, as so much of what they do is personal. Keep close to your family, friends, and the people who love you for you, not just the work.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“But remember what writer Colin Marshall says: “Compulsive avoidance of embarrassment is a form of suicide.” If you spend your life avoiding vulnerability, you and your work will never truly connect with other people.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“If you want followers, be someone worth following. Barry Hannah said to one of his students, “Have you tried making yourself a more interesting person?” This seems like a really mean thing to say, unless you think of the word interesting the way writer Lawrence Weschler does: For him, to be “interest-ing” is to be curious and attentive, and to practice “the continual projection of interest.” To put it more simply: If you want to be interesting, you have to be interested.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“You should be able to explain your work to a kindergartner, a senior citizen, and everybody in between. Of course, you always need to keep your audience in mind: The way you explain your work to your buddies at the bar is not the way you explain your work to your mother.”
― 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. The first act is where you’ve been—what you want, how you came to want it, and what you’ve done so far to get it. The second act is where you are now in your work and how you’ve worked hard and used up most of your resources. The third act is where you’re going, and how exactly the person you’re pitching can help you get there.”
― 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. Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work affects how they value it.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Stock and flow” is an economic concept that writer Robin Sloan has adapted into a metaphor for media: “Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind people you exist. Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content you produce that’s as interesting in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what people discover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, building fans over time.” Sloan says the magic formula is to maintain your flow while working on your stock in the background.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“The Internet is basically”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Using our body relaxes our mind, and when our mind gets relaxed, it opens up to having new thoughts.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“A successful or failed project is no guarantee of another success or failure.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Strike all the adjectives from your bio.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve. Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“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

“The first step in evaluating feedback is sizing up who it came from.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“If you want to be interesting, you have to be interested.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work affects how they value it.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“The trouble is, we don’t always know what’s good and what sucks. That’s why it’s important to get things in front of others and see how they react.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Strike all the adjectives from your bio. If you take photos, you’re not an “aspiring” photographer, and you’re not an “amazing” photographer, either. You’re a photographer. Don’t get cute. Don’t brag. Just state the facts.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”—Annie Dillard”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Amateurs might lack formal training, but they’re all lifelong learners, and they make a point of learning in the open, so that others can learn from their failures and successes.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“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.” Amateurs know that contributing something is better”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“Não diga que você não tem tempo suficiente. Todos somos ocupados, mas todos temos 24 horas no nosso dia. As pessoas geralmente me perguntam: “Como você encontra tempo para tudo isso?” E respondo: “Eu procuro.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

“A blog is the ideal machine for turning flow into stock: One little blog post is nothing on its own, but publish a thousand blog posts over a decade, and it turns into your life’s work.”
― Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered