Show your work, and when the right people show up, pay close attention to them, because they'll have a lot to show you.

Be nice. (The world is a small town.)

Dig into almost every overnight success story and you’ll find about a decade’s worth of hard work and perseverance.

Write the book you want to read

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

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.

Art is theft”) and Igor Stravinsky (“Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal”), I’ve always stolen from the people I admire – not plagiarized, mind you, but stolen bits of ideas and stylistic influences. If you steal widely enough, after all, your models are inevitably changed and the result is in the end completely yours. Kleon cites André Gide to this point, in a quotation I love: “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.