Read terrible books, too

Austin Kleon · 7 Sept 2023

Austin Kleon did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Reading bad work is instructive as well as reassuring, so a maker should not read only the good stuff.
Mental modelLearning machine

Their wordsYes! Reading bad writing not only boosts one’s confidence, it can be very instructive.
Our reading
The mediocre is the only thing worth avoiding: the best and the worst both teach you something, the middle teaches nothing.

Their wordsWhat you want to avoid, I think, is mediocre writing, which neither thrills nor instructs.

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