Quotes: Steve Jobs

"Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do." 

–– Steve Jobs (1955-2011), American industrial designer and entrepreneur 

via: Commonplace Book, 2022-2024, 2024, p. 180.

Quotes: Anthony Doerr

"Fiction writing is often an excuse for me to pursue various curiosities I have. And curiosity is really just a form of love: "Are you curious?" is another way of asking, "Are you in love with the world?" In my own work, projects always start with something I get really interested in, like whale standings or insects or venomous snails, or hibernating animals or snowflakes. The research is often the kernel, and I start writing around it; building it out into a spiral sort of, trying to find a character who I can use –– often I go for the most obvious thing, which is to infect the character with the same kind of interest I have (e.g., the shell collector). So when young writers ask for advice, not that I'm qualified to give any, I usually say that part of writing is finding the things in the world that you care the most about, that you care so deeply about you'd never get tired of reading or writing about them, and make those your subjects. For me it has been wonder –– what wonder is, where can we find it. For someone else it might be skateboards, or jazz, or bipolar disorder, or whatever. If you care deeply enough about something, some of that interest and passion will (hopefully) transfer through the page to the reader."

–– Anthony Doerr, American writer 

Source: Austin Kleon Tumblr, Friday July 26, 2024.

via: Commonplace Book, 2022-2024, 2024, p. 189-190.

Quotes: Jane Hirshfield

"In order to gain anything, you must first lose everything."

–– Jane Hirshfield (b. 1953), American poet, trained in Zen Buddhism 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, p. 8.

Quotes: Joanna Macy

"Falling apart is not such a bad thing. Indeed, it is as essential to evolutionary and psychological transformation as the cracking of outgrown shells." 

–– Joanna Macy (b. 1929), American environmental activist, scholar & author 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, p. 7.

Quotes: James Joyce

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery." 

–– James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic

via 2020 Aboveground Art Supplies Knapsack Sketchbook, 2024 p. 47.

Quotes: Mary Oliver

"If you notice anything, 

it leads you to notice

more

and more."

–– Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet 

via 2020 Aboveground Art Supplies Knapsack Sketchbook, 2024 p. 46.

Quotes: Robert Louis Stevenson

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant."

–– Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Scottish novelist and poet

via 2020 Aboveground Art Supplies Knapsack Sketchbook, 2024 p. 45. 

Quotes: Leanne Ford

"If you aren't making anyone nervous, you aren't doing anything special." 

–– Leanne Ford (b. 1981), American interior designer

via 2020 Aboveground Art Supplies Knapsack Sketchbook, 2024 p. 45. 

Quotes: Anne Lamott

"Expectations are resentments under construction."

–– Anne Lamott (b. 1954), American writer 

via 2020 Aboveground Art Supplies Knapsack Sketchbook, 2024 p. 45. 

Quotes: Elizabeth King

"Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions." 

–– Elizabeth King (b. 1950), American sculptor and writer 

Source: Seth Godin. The Practice: Shipping Creative Work. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2020; p. 4.

via 2020 Aboveground Art Supplies Knapsack Sketchbook, 2024 p. 44. 

Quotes: Mary Oliver

"Attention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report. An openness – an empathy – was necessary if the attention was to matter." 

–– Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet 

via 2020 Aboveground Art Supplies Knapsack Sketchbook, 2024 p. 44. 

Quotes: Aditi Nerurkar

"The language of gratitude is a powerful circuit breaker for your brain's stress pathway. Gratitude has been shown to decrease stress, improve mood and resilience, and improve life satisfaction. In one study, gratitude was found to be protective for depressive and physical symptoms during a stressful life event; in another, gratitude decreased stress levels in just one month. Gratitude can also help alter your brain circuitry for negative experiences; instead of sticking to you like Teflon. This process is known as cognitive reframing –– that is, what you focus on grows." 

–– Aditi Nerurkar, Harvard physician, author, speaker, and TV correspondent 

Source: Aditi Nerurkar, MD. The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience. New York: HarperCollins, 2024, p. 214.

via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2023, p. 162.

Quotes: Adam Alter

"When smart people say, "You make your own luck," what they're really saying is that luck is less mystical than it seems. The best way to be lucky is to persevere, because luck overlaps with longevity. If luck is by definition unpredictable, you have a greater chance of being lucky the longer you push."

–– Adam Alter, South African writer and professor 

Source: Adam Alter. Anatomy of a Breakthrough. Toronto: Simon & Shuster, 2023; p. 30. 

via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2023, p. 133.

Quotes: Franz Kafka

"Sit at your desk and listen."

–– Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Bohemian-born writer 

Source: Austin Kleon, Instagram

via: Sketchbook L, 2024, p. 43. 

Quotes: Erika Cramer

"It's not about what happens to you, it's about what you decide to do next." 

–– Erika Cramer, American public speaker, author, podcaster, coach 

Source: Queen of Confidence, Instagram 

via: Sketchbook L, 2024, p. 39. 

Quotes: John Durham Peters

"Write early in the morning, cultivate memory, reread core books, take detailed reading notes, work on several projects at once, maintain a thick archive, rotate crops, take a weekly Sabbath, go to bed at the same time, exercise so hard you can't think during it, talk to different kinds of people including the very young and very old, take words and their histories seriously (i.e., read dictionaries), step outside the empire of the English language regularly, look for vocabulary from other fields, love the basic, keep your antennae tuned, and seek out contexts of understanding quickly (i.e., used guides, encyclopedias, and Wikipedia without guilt)." 

–– John Durham Peters (b. 1958), American historian, social theorist, professor, and author 

Source: John Durham Peters in an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books via Submitted For Your Perusal, weblog July 14, 2015 via Austin Kleon newsletter June 21, 2024. 

via: Sketchbook L, 2024, p. 35-36. 

Quotes: Richard Serra

"For the most part, work comes out of work." 

–– Richard Serra (1938-2024), American sculptor 

Source: ART 21 on YouTube, via Austin Kleon, Tumblr. 

via: Sketchbook L, 2024, p. 31.

Quotes: Yuri Kochiyama

"Stand up against oppression, even when it is unpopular or inconvenient." 

–– Yuri Kochiyama (1921-2014), American civil rights activist

via: Sketchbook L 2024, p. 11. 

Quotes: Aristotle

"Change in all things is sweet."

–– Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), Greek philosopher 

via: Sketchbook L 2024, p. 3.

Quotes: Russian proverb

"Repetition is the mother of all learning."

–– Old Russian proverb 

Source: Austin Kleon, February 20, 2024

via: Sketchbook L 2024, p. 2.

Quotes: Yumi Sakugawa

"Most of the time the universe speaks to us very quietly in pockets of silence, in coincidences, in nature, in forgotten memories, in the shape of clouds, in moments of solitude, in small tugs at our hearts." 

–– Yumi Sakugawa (b. 1985), American interdisciplinary artist

via: Sketchbook L 2024, p. 2.

Quotes: Eileen Myles

"Weirdness, I've learned, always pays off." 

–– Eileen Myles (b. 1949), American writer, poet, performer 

Source: Austin Kleon, November 5, 2021 

via: Sketchbook L 2024, p. 2.

Quotes: Peter Drucker

"There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all." 

–– Peter Drucker (1909-2005), Austrian-born American author, educator and management consultant 

via: Commonplace Book 2022-2024, 2024, p. 182. 

Quotes: Anthony Doerr

"We don't write what we know exactly, but rather we write to know. Writing in that sense becomes better understood as a kind of prayer, a kind of inquiry, something best done over time, repetitively, day after day." 

–– Anthony Doerr, American writer 

Source: Austin Kleon Tumblr, Friday July 26, 2024.

via: Commonplace Book, 2022-2024, 2024, p. 189.

Quotes: Robert Heinlein

"There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe." 

–– Robert Heinlein (1907-1988), American author and aeronautical engineer 

via: Commonplace Book 2022-2024, 2023, p. 133.

Quotes: Stephen Marche

"Rejection is the evidence of your hustle. Rejection is the sign that you are throwing yourself against the door." 

–– Stephen Marche (b. 1976), Canadian novelist, essayist, cultural commentator 

via: Commonplace Book, 2022-2024, 2024, p. 166.

Quotes: Pablo Picasso

"Learn the rules like a pro, so that you can break them like an artist."

–– Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist 

via: Commonplace Book 2022-2024, 2023, p.178.  

Quotes: Steve Jobs

"Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains."  

–– Steve Jobs (1955-2011), American industrial designer and entrepreneur 

via: Commonplace Book 2022-2024, 2024, p. 180.

Quotes: Leonardo da Vinci

"Art is never finished, only abandoned." 

–– Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian painter, engineer, inventor, and architect 

via: Commonplace Book 2022-2024, 2024,p. 182.

Quotes: Nina Simone

"I have to constantly re-identify myself to myself, reactivate my own standards, my own convictions about what I'm doing and why."

–– Nina Simone (1933-2003), American singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist 

Quotes: David Bowie

"I think it's terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill someone else's expectations. They generally produce their worst work when they do that." 

–– David Bowie (1947-2016), English musician and actor