Notes: Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

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Steal Like an Artist is a must-read for anyone who is (or wants to) make a name as a creative. Below are some of my favorite quotes and ideas from the book. My notes will give you a great summary, but be sure to support Austin and pick up his book for the full experience. At the end of this post, I’ve made a list of Action Steps and recommend resources from the book. Be sure to check out Austin’s website and follow him on Twitter (@austinkleon) and Insta (@austinkleon).

Last thing—if you enjoy reading, be sure to subscribe to my Bookaholics Newsletter, a free monthly publication for book-loving multidisciplinary.

Note: bolded sentence, (thoughts in parentheses) and headers are emphasized by me (Josh).

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“Art is theft.” — Pablo Picasso

“The only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from.” — David Bowie

“All advice is autobiographical. It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past.”

“How does an artist look at the world? First you figure out what’s worth stealing, then you move on to the next thing. … there’s only stuff worth stealing, and stuff that’s not worth stealing.”

“What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original. It’s right there in the Bible: ‘There is nothing new under the sun.’ (Ecclesiastes 1:9)”

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” — André Gide, French Writer

“Every new ideas is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.”

“Just as you have a familial genealogy, you also have a genealogy of ideas. You don’t get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see.”

“You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences.”

“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” —Goethe, German writer

“The artist is a collector. … selectively. They only collect things that they really love.”

“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 things is true of our idea incomes. You’re only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with.”

“Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.”

“Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light, and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.” — Jim Jarmusch, director

“The great thing about dead or remote masters is that they can’t refuse you as an apprentice. You can learn whatever you want from them. They left their lesson plans in their work.”

“You have to be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else—that’s how you’ll get ahead.”

“Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started”

“Make things, Know thyself.”

“If I’d waited to know who I was or what I was about before I started ‘being creative,’ well, I’d still be sitting around trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it’s in the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are.”

“You might be scared to start. That’s natural. There’s this very real thing that runs rampant in educated people. It’s called ‘impostor syndrome’. … It means that you feel like a phony, like you’re just winging it, that you really don’t have any idea what you’re doing. … Guess what: None of us do. Ask anybody doing truly creative work, and they’ll tell you the truth: They don’t know where the good stuff comes from. They just show up to do their thing. Every day.”

“Pretend to be making something until you actually make something.”

“You have to dress for the job you want, not the job you have, and you have to start doing the work you want to be doing.”

“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 plain old time. An hour here, or an hour there—just time measured out for things to happen.”

“Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find your self.” — Yohji Yamamoto, Japanese fashion designer

“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.”

“We’re talking practice here, not plagiarism. Copying is about reverse-engineering.”

“We learn to write by copying down the alphabet. Musicians learn to play by practicing scales. Painters learn to paint by reproducing masterpieces.”

“First, you have to figure out who to copy. Second, you have to figure out what to copy.”

“Who to copy is easy. You copy your heroes — the people you love, the people you’re inspired by, the people you want to be.”

“You start out by rewriting your hero’s catalog.” — Nick Lowe, songwriter

“If you have one person you’re influenced by, everyone will say you’re the next whoever. But if you rip off a hundred people, everyone will say you’re so original!” — Gary Panter, cartoonist

“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.”

“At some point, you’ll have to move from imitating your heroes to emulating them. Imitation is about copying. Emulation is when imitation goes one step further, breaking through into your own thing.”

“I have stolen all of these moves from all these great players. I just try to do them proud, the guys who came before, because I learned so much from them. It’s all in the name of the game. It’s a lot bigger than me.” — Kobe Bryant

“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.”

“The best advice is not to write what you know, its 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?’”

“We make art because we like art. We’re drawn to certain kinds of work because we’re inspired by people doing that work. All fiction, in fact, is fan fiction.”

“Think about your favorite work and your creative heroes. What did they miss? What didn’t they make? What could’ve been made better? If they were still alive, what would they be making today? If all your favorite makers got together and collaborated, what would they make with you leading the crew? Go make that stuff.”

“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.”

“Work that only comes from the head isn’t any good. Watch a great musician play a show. Watch a great leader give a speech. You’ll see what I mean. You need to find a way to bring your body into your work.”

“It wasn’t until I started bringing analog tools back into my process that making things became fun again and my work started to improve.”

“That’s how I try to do all my work now. I have two desks in my office — one is ‘analog’ and one is ‘digital’. The analog desk has nothing but markers, pens, pencils, paper, index cards, and newspaper. Nothing electronic is allowed on that desk. This is where most of my work is born, and all over the desk are physical traces, scraps, and residue from my process. … The digital desk has my laptop, my monitor, my scanner, and my drawing tablet. This is where i edit and publish my work.”

“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” — Jessica Hische, American letterer, illustrator, and type designer

“One thing I’ve learned in my brief career: It’s the side projects that really take off. By side projects I mean the stuff that you thought was just messing around. Stuff that’s just play. That’s actually the good stuff. That’s when the magic happens.”

“I think it’s good to have a lot of projects going at once so you can bounce between them.”

Steve Tomlinson suggest that if you love different things, you just keep spending time with them. “Let them talk to each other. Something will begin to happen.”

“It’s so important to have a hobby. A hobby is something creative that’s just for you. You don’t try to make money or get famous off it, you just do it because it makes you happy. A hobby is something that gives but doesn’t take.”

“Don’t throw any of yourself away. Don’t worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. Don’t work about unity—what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day you will look back and it will all make sense.”

“Do good work and share it with people.”

“People love it when you give your secrets away, and sometimes, if you’re smart about it, they’ll reward you by buying the things you’re selling.”

“You don’t have to live anywhere other than the place you are to start connecting with the world you want to be in. If you feel stuck somewhere, if you’re too young or too old or too broke, or if you’re somehow tied down to a place, take heart. There’s a community of people out there you can connect with.”

“All you need is a little space and a little time — a place to work, and some time to do it; a little self-imposed solitude and temporary captivity.”

“Distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.” — Jonah Lehrer, American author

“You have to find a place that feeds you—creatively, socially, spiritually, and literally.”

“Make Friends, Ignore Enemies.”

“There is only one reason I’m here: I’m here to make friends.”

“Find the most talented person in the room, and if it’s not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. Try to be helpful.” — Harold Ramis. (For Ramis, this was Bill Murray.)

“If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.”

“Show appreciation without expecting anything in return.”

“It takes a lot of energy to be creative. You don’t have that energy if you waste it on other stuff.”

“The truth is that even if you’re lucky enough to make a living off doing what you truly love, it will probably take you a while to get to that point. Until then, you’ll need a day job.”

“A day job gives you money, a connection to the world, and a routine. Freedom from financial stress also means freedom in your art.”

“The solution is really simple: Figure out what time you can carve out, what time you can steal, and stick to your routine. Do the work every day, no matter what. No holidays, no sick days. Don’t stop.”

“Writing a page each day doesn’t seem like much, but do it for 365 days and you have enough to fill a novel. One successful client pitch is a small victory, but a few dozen of them can get you a promotion.”

“A calendar helps you plan work, gives you concrete goals, and keeps you on track.”

“Marry Well. Who you marry is the most important decision you’ll ever make. And ‘marry well’ doesn’t just mean your life partner — it also means who you do business with, who you befriend, who you choose to be around. Relationships are hard enough, but it takes a real champion of a person to be married to someone who’s obsessed with a creative pursuit.”

“Creativity is subtraction.”

It seems contradictory, but when it comes to creative work, limitations mean freedom. Write a song on your lunch break. Paint a painting with only one color. Start a business without any start-up capital. Shoot a movie with your iPhone and a few of your friends. Build a machine out of space parts. Don’t make excuses for not working ‚ make things with the time, space, and materials you have, right now.”

“Embrace your limitations, and keep moving.”

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

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

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Action Steps:

[Action Step]: “Chew on one thinker — writer, artist, activist, role model — you really love. Study everything there is to know about that thinker. Then find three people that thinker loved, and find out everything about them. Repeat this as many times as you can. Climb up the tree as far as you can go. Once you build your tree, it’s time to start your own branch.”

[Action Step]: “School Yourself: School is one thing. Education is another. The two don’t always overlap. Whether you’re in school or not, its always your job to get yourself an education.”

[Action Step]: “Always be reading. Go to the library. There’s magic in being surrounded by books.”

[Action Step]: “Carry a notebook and a pen with you wherever you go. Get used to pulling it out and jotting down your thoughts and observations. Copy your favorite passages out of books. Record overheard conversations. Doodle when you’re on the phone.”

[Action Step]: “Keep a swipe file. A file to keep track of the stuff you’ve swiped from others. It can be digital or analog. … See something worth stealing? Put it in the swipe file. Need a little inspiration? Open up the swipe file.”

[Action Step]: “Write the book you want to read”

[Action Step]: “Practice productive procrastination”

[Action Step] “Write a blog post about someone’s work that you admire and link to their site. Make something and dedicate it to your hero. Answer a question they’ve asked, solve a problem for them, or improve on their work and share it online.”

[Action Step]: “Keep a Praise File — a folder where you keep all the nice things/compliments you’ve gotten from others.”

Recommended Reading:

• What it is by Lynda Barry
• Ignore Everybody by Hugh Macleod
• Rework by Jason Friend + DHH
• The Gift by Lewis Hyde
• The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem
• Reality Hunger by David Shields
• Understanding Comics by Scott Mccloud
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
• Flow by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyl
• Make A World by Ed Emberley

Resources/Folks Mentioned