Steal Like an Artist summary

by Austin Kleon · 2012 · 8 key ideas · 20-minute read

Nothing is completely original, so collect influences honestly, remix them into something your own, and keep making things.

Why read it

For anyone who feels they aren't 'creative enough' to start. It is short, illustrated and practical, and it replaces the myth of the lone genius with habits anyone can copy.

Steal Like an Artist in brief

Kleon's starting point is freeing: every new idea is a mash-up of older ones. Artists don't create from nothing; they collect what they love, study it, and recombine it. Once you accept that, the pressure to be completely original falls away, and the real question becomes what you choose to collect and how honestly you transform it.

He then tells you to start before you feel ready. You will not discover who you are by thinking about it; you discover it by making things, often by copying your heroes until your own voice leaks out of the gaps where you fail to copy them well. The work you should make is the work you wish existed and can't find.

The middle of the book is about the conditions that keep creativity alive: using your hands and body rather than only a screen, keeping side projects and hobbies, building a small world for yourself wherever you live, and staying kind and generous because the creative world is smaller than it looks.

Finally Kleon argues for a quiet, unglamorous life: steady routines, a supportive partner, money handled sensibly, and a logbook of your days. Limits, not unlimited freedom, are what force good ideas. The book ends where it began: the work is a cycle of taking in, making, and giving back to the people who will steal from you next.

The 8 key ideas

1. Nothing is original

Steal from one, it's theft. Steal from many, it's style.

2. Climb your own family tree

Your heroes had heroes. Follow the chain.

3. Copy your way to your voice

Your voice is where your copy goes wrong.

4. Write the book you want to read

Make the thing you keep looking for.

5. Use your hands, and keep side projects

Start with your hands. Finish with your screen.

6. Do good work and share it

Obscurity is freedom. Use it, then share.

7. Be nice; the world is a small town

Be the person people are glad to have in the room.

8. Be boring, and embrace limits

Boring life, bold work. Fewer options, better ideas.

Key takeaways

• Keep a swipe file of work you admire and note why each piece grabs you.
• Learn by copying your heroes in private, then publish what's yours.
• Make the thing you wish existed instead of waiting to know your style.
• Start ideas away from the screen and keep at least one playful side project.
• Share your work, praise others publicly, and keep a praise file for bad days.
• Protect a steady routine and set deliberate limits on each project.

Our take

Steal Like an Artist is fast, warm and genuinely useful: the 'good theft' framework and daily-habit advice hold up well, and it has helped many people start. Its brevity is also its weakness. Most chapters are slogans with a page of explanation, so readers wanting depth on craft, feedback or making a living will need other books. The 'nothing is original' line can be misread as permission to copy loosely, and real copyright questions are left unaddressed. Its online-sharing optimism also reflects the early-2010s internet; today's algorithm-driven platforms can make 'just share it' harder and more draining than the book suggests.

About Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon is a writer and artist known for his Newspaper Blackout poems, made by redacting words from newspaper articles. This book became the first of a trilogy, followed by Show Your Work! and Keep Going.

If you liked this

• Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon
• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
• The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
• On Writing by Stephen King