60 Top Quotes From The Art of Asking
"The Art of Asking" is an inspiring memoir that delves into the profound impact of vulnerability and genuine connection in our lives. Amanda Palmer, a successful musician and artist, shares her personal journey of learning to ask for help and support from her fans and community. She challenges societal norms of self-sufficiency and demonstrates the power of embracing vulnerability and building meaningful relationships.
Through candid storytelling and heartfelt anecdotes, Palmer breaks down barriers between artists and audiences, exemplifying the beauty of human connection and shared experiences. In a world often characterized by detachment and isolation, "The Art of Asking" serves as a testament to the transformative power of trust and openness. This book encourages readers to reevaluate their perceptions of giving and receiving, reminding them that asking for help is not a sign of weakness but an invitation for genuine human connection and collective growth. (The Art of Asking Summary).
The Art of Asking Quotes
"There’s a difference between wanting to be looked at and wanting to be seen. When you are looked at, your eyes can be closed. You suck energy, you steal the spotlight. When you are seen, your eyes must be open, and you are seeing and recognizing your witness. You accept energy and you generate energy. You create light. One is exhibitionism, the other is connection. Not everybody wants to be looked at. Everybody wants to be seen.”
"Asking for help with shame says: You have the power over me. Asking with condescension says: I have the power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.” (Meaning)
"There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.”
"From what I've seen, it isn't so much the act of asking that paralyzes us--it's what lies beneath: the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one. It points, fundamentally, to our separation from one another.”
"There's really no honor in proving that you can carry the entire load on your own shoulders. And...it's lonely”
"When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it.”
"And when you’re afraid of someone’s judgment, you can’t connect with them. You’re too preoccupied with the task of impressing them.”
"In both the art and the business worlds, the difference between the amateurs and the professionals is simple: The professionals know they’re winging it. The amateurs pretend they’re not.”
"The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous. When we spend our lives pushing away and protecting ourselves from feeling vulnerable or from being perceived as too emotional, we feel contempt when others are less capable or willing to mask feelings, suck it up, and soldier on. We’ve come to the point where, rather than respecting and appreciating the courage and daring behind vulnerability, we let our fear and discomfort become judgment and criticism.”
"Eat the pain. Send it back into the void as love.”
"American culture in particular has instilled in us the bizarre notion that to ask for help amounts to an admission of failure. But some of the most powerful, successful, admired people in the world seem, to me, to have something in common: they ask constantly, creatively, compassionately, and gracefully. And to be sure: when you ask, there’s always the possibility of a no on the other side of the request. If we don’t allow for that no, we’re not actually asking, we’re either begging or demanding. But it is the fear of the no that keeps so many of our mouths sewn tightly shut.”
"Those who can ask without shame are viewing themselves in collaboration with—rather than in competition with—the world.”
"Anthony once told me: It isn’t what you say to people, it’s more important what you do with them. It’s less important what you do with them than the way you’re with them.”
"Sometimes it was like Neil was from an alien planet, where people never asked for or shared anything emotional without deeply apologizing first. He assured me that he was simply British. And that we Americans, with all of our loud oversharing and need for random hugs and free admissions to people we've just met of deep, traumatic childhood wounds looks just as alien to them.”
"You can’t ever give people what they want. But you can give them something else. You can give them empathy. You can give them understanding. And that’s a lot, and enough to give.”
"It's hard enough to give fearlessly, and it's even harder to receive fearlessly. But within that exchange lies the hardest thing of all: To ask. Without shame. And to accept the help that people offer. Not to force them. Just to let them.”
"It’s really easy to love passing strangers unconditionally. They demand nothing of you. It is really hard to love people unconditionally when they can hurt you.”
"Art pries us open.”
"I’ve apologized tons of times. The only thing I must not do is break the code of honesty and steady, forthright contact. You can fix almost anything by authentically communicating.”
"As I moved through my life as a statue and later as a musician, I started to understand. There’s a difference between wanting to be looked at and wanting to be seen.”
"To erase the possibility of empathy is also to erase the possibility of art. Theater, fiction, horror stories, love stories. This is what art does. Good or bad, it imagines the insides, the heart of the other, whether that heart is full of light or trapped in darkness.”
"Asking is, in itself, the fundamental building block of any relationship.”
"Those who ask without fear learn to say two things, with or without words, to those they are facing: I deserve to ask and You are welcome to say no. Because the ask that is conditional cannot be a gift.”
"Those who can ask without shame are viewing themselves in collaboration with—rather than in competition with—the world. Asking for help with shame says: You have the power over me. Asking with condescension says: I have the power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.”
"When artists work well, they connect people to themselves, and they stitch people to one another, through this shared experience of discovering a connection that wasn’t visible before. Have you ever noticed that this looks like this? And with the same delight that we took as children in seeing a face in a cloud, grown-up artists draw the lines between the bigger dots of grown-up life: sex, love, vanity, violence, illness, death.”
"When you examine the genesis of great works of art, successful start-ups, and revolutionary shifts in politics, you can always trace back a history of monetary and nonmonetary exchange, the hidden patrons and underlying favors.”
"When you’re afraid of someone’s judgment, you can’t connect with them. You’re too preoccupied with the task of impressing them.”
"Our first job in life is to recognize the gifts we’ve already got, take the donuts that show up while we cultivate and use those gifts, and then turn around and share those gifts—sometimes in the form of money, sometimes time, sometimes love—back into the puzzle of the world. Our second job is to accept where we are in the puzzle at each moment.”
"There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are.”
"When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it. There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.”
"When you accept somebody’s offer for help, whether it’s in the form of food, crash space, money, or love, you have to trust the help offered. You can’t accept things halfway and walk through the door with your guard up. When you openly, radically trust people, they not only take care of you, they become your allies, your family. Sometimes people will prove themselves untrustworthy. When that happens, the correct response is not: Fuck! I knew I couldn’t trust anybody! The correct response is: Some people just suck. Moving right along.”
"Limitations can expand, rather than shrink, the creative flow.”
"Often it is our own sense that we are undeserving of help that has immobilized us.”
"The professionals know they’re winging it. The amateurs pretend they’re not.”
"From what I’ve seen, it isn’t so much the act of asking that paralyzes us—it’s what lies beneath: the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one.”
"Whatever we are given is supposed to be given away, not kept.”
"What’s important is that I absorb, listen, talk, connect, help, and share. Constantly.”
"How do we create a world in which people don’t think of art just as a product, but as a relationship?”
"We have the power to help each other.”
"Given the opportunity, some small consistent portion of the population will happily pay for art.”
"With the same delight that we took as children in seeing a face in a cloud, grown-up artists draw the lines between the bigger dots of grown-up life: sex, love, vanity, violence, illness, death.”
"Asking for help with shame says: You have the power over me. Asking with condescension says: I have the power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.”
"Everybody out there is winging it to some degree, of this we can be pretty sure.”
"Asking for help requires authenticity, and vulnerability.”
"People can understand a price tag, no matter what it’s stuck on. But some can’t understand a messier exchange of asking and giving—the gift that stays in motion.”
"Here’s the thing: all of us come from some place of wanting to be seen, understood, accepted, connected. Every single one of us wants to be believed. Artists are often just louder about it.”
"Listening fast, and caring immediately, is a skill in itself.”
"In truth, feeling love from a distance is just lonely. Maybe even worse than no love at all, because it feels so unnatural.”
"You must prepare the ground. If you’re going to be asking one day, you need someone to ask who is going to answer the call. So you tend to your relationships on a nonstop basis, you abide by the slow, ongoing task, going out there like a faithful farmer, landing on the unseeable bamboo shoot. And then, when it is time—whether you’re asking a bunch of people to preorder your album, or asking one person to hold back your hair while you’re puking—someone will be there for you.”
"The value of the flower would increase the moment I handed it over to its buyer—and as we held each other’s gaze, I could feel the value rising, like an emotional stock ticker. The value of the gift rises in transit, as it is passed from hand to hand, from heart to heart. It gains its value in the giving, and in the taking.”
"You can fix almost anything by just authentically communicating.”
"To erase the possibility of empathy is to erase the possibility of understanding.”
"It is really hard to love people unconditionally when they can hurt you.”
"Asking is, at its core, a collaboration.”
"Giving away free content, for me, was about the value of the music becoming the connection itself.”
"He’d believed for a long time, deep down, that people didn’t actually fall in love. That they were all faking it.”
"Physical pain and intense experiences of social rejection hurt in the same way… Neuroscience advances confirm what we’ve known all along: emotions can hurt and cause pain. And just as we often struggle to define physical pain, describing emotional pain is difficult. Shame is particularly hard because it hates having words wrapped around it. It hates being spoken.”
"Everybody struggles with asking. From what I’ve seen, it isn’t so much the act of asking that paralyses us, it’s what lies beneath. The fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak, the fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one.”
"It made me consider one of the reasons I loved my fanbase so much: they are wholly independent and have their own unassailable, discerning tastes. They weren’t looking to me as a leader to follow blindly, there to dictate their choices. They were looking to me as a connector, a coordinator, which was the role I wanted.”
"Feeling gratitude was a skill I honed on the street and dragged along with me into the music industry. I never aimed to please everyone who walked by, or everyone listening to the radio. All I needed was…some people. Enough people. Enough to make it worth coming back the next day, enough people to help me make rent and put food on the table. Enough so I could keep making art.”
"I’m often asked, “How can you trust people so much?” Because that’s the only way it works. When you accept somebody’s offer for help, whether it’s in the form of food, crash-space, money or love, you have to trust the help offered. You can’t accept things halfway and walk through the door with your guard up.”
"Eat the pain. Send it back to the void as love.”
"An artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.”
"This impulse to connect the dots—and to share what you’ve connected—is the urge that makes you an artist. If”
"It’s about finding your people, your listeners, your readers, and making art for and with them. Not for the masses, not for the critics, but for your ever-widening circle of friends. It”
"American culture in particular has instilled in us the bizarre notion that to ask for help amounts to an admission of failure.”
"Almost every important human encounter boils down to the act, and the art, of asking.”
"The opportunity, some small consistent portion of the population will happily pay for art.”
"Everybody out there is winging it to some degree, of this we can be pretty sure. In both the art and the business worlds, the difference between the amateurs and the professionals is simple: The professionals know they’re winging it. The amateurs pretend they’re not.”
"Asking is an act of intimacy and trust. Begging is a function of fear, desperation, or weakness. Those who must beg demand our help; those who ask have faith in our capacity for love and in our desire to share with one another.”
"We all got used to living in the cloud of unknowing.”
"The art of asking can be learned, studied, perfected. The masters of asking, like the masters of painting and music, know that the field of asking is fundamentally improvisational. It thrives not in the creation of rules and etiquette but in the smashing of that etiquette.”
"People can understand a price tag no matter what it's stuck on. But they couldn't understand the messier exchange of asking and giving: the gift that stays in motion.”
"To erase the possibility of empathy is to erase the possibility of understanding”
― Quotes from the book The Art of Asking by Amanda MacKinnon
The Art of Asking Author
Amanda MacKinnon, known professionally as Amanda Palmer, is a multifaceted artist, musician, and author whose work challenges conventional norms and sparks conversations on vulnerability, artistry, and human connections. Through her memoir "The Art of Asking," Palmer opens up about her life as a street performer, her experiences as part of the alternative music duo The Dresden Dolls, and her journey as a solo artist. She delves into the transformative power of asking for help and cultivating genuine connections with fans and supporters. Her raw and unapologetic storytelling resonates deeply with readers, urging them to embrace their authenticity and overcome fear in expressing their true selves. Amanda MacKinnon's unique perspective on art and humanity has inspired a legion of fans and fellow artists to navigate the complexities of creativity with courage, openness, and a profound appreciation for the community that supports them.
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
