STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST 10 THINGS NOBODY TOLD YOU ABOUT BEING CREATIVE by AUSTIN KLEON
Impressions:
After I finish reading the book SHOW YOUR WORK! by Austin Kleon, I was so overwhelmed and satisfied. So I decided to read STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST . I was absolute sure I'll have a great journey with the book.
Favorite Lines and Quotes:
- when people give you advice, they’re really just
talking to themselves in the past.
Chapter 1: Steal Like an Artist
- The writer Jonathan Lethem has said that when people call something “original,”
nine out of ten times they just don’t know the references or the original sources
involved. - It’s right there in the Bible: “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes
1:9) - As the French
writer André Gide put it, “Everything that needs to be said has already been said.
But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” - 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. - Don’t ask a question before you Google it. You’ll either find the
answer or you’ll come up with a better question. - Filmmaker John Waters has said, “Nothing is more important than an unread library.”
Chapter 2: Don’t Wait Until You Know Who You Are to Get Started
- dramaturgy? It’s a fancy term for something William
Shakespeare spelled out in his play
As You Like It about 400 years ago: - There are two ways to read it:
1. Pretend to be something you’re not until you are—fake it until you’re
successful, until everybody sees you the way you want them to; or
2. Pretend to be making something until you actually make something.
I love both readings—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. - The writer Wilson Mizner said if
you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s
research. - the cartoonist Gary Panter say, “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!”
Chapter 3: Write the Book You Want to Read
Chapter 4: Use Your Hands
Chapter 5: Side Projects and Hobbies Are Important
- If you’re out of ideas, wash the dishes. Take a 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.” - If you have two or three real passions, don’t feel like you have to pick and
choose between them. Don’t discard. Keep all your passions in your life. - Tomlinson suggests that if you love different things, you just keep spending time
with them. “Let them talk to each other. Something will begin to happen.” - 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.
Chapter 6: The Secret: Do Good Work and Share It With People.
- The classroom is a wonderful, if artificial, place: Your professor gets
paid to pay attention to your ideas, and your classmates are paying to pay
attention to your ideas. Never again in your life will you have such a captive
audience. - You’ll never get that freedom back again once people start paying you attention,
and especially not once they start paying you money.
Chapter 7: Geography is No Longer Our Master
- You’ll never get that freedom back again once people start paying you attention,
and especially not once they start paying you money. - Travel makes the world look new, and
when the world looks new, our brains work harder.
Chapter 8: Be Nice. (The World is a Small Town)
- The important thing is that you show your
appreciation without expecting anything in return, and that you get new work out
of the appreciation.
Chapter 9: Be Boring. (It’s the Only Way to Get Work Done)
- 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. - As photographer Bill
Cunningham says, “If you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do.”
Chapter 10: Creativity is Subtraction
Epilogue:
I really enjoyed the whole time of reading Steal Like an Artist
10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon
For more book notes : https://fahimmuntashir.com/book-notes
