Andrea Arnold Quotes

I don't usually read reviews.

I don't generally read reviews.

I often don't read reviews.

I don't really read reviews... That's not where my attention goes.

Sometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.

I believe in choosing the hardest book imaginable. I believe in reading up on what others have to say about this difficult book, and then making up my own mind.

There are some readers who have never read an essay on taste; and if they take my advice they never will, for they can no more improve their taste by so doing than they could improve their appetite or digestion by studying a cookery-book.

I never read a book before previewing it; it prejudices a man so.

The books I read I do enjoy, very much; otherwise I wouldn't read them. Most of them are for review, for the New York Review of Books, and substantial.

I rarely read or buy a book because of a review.

I don't read the critics.

I haven't read for pleasure in 35 years. I mean, I get a lot of pleasure from what I read... For me, it's gotten so that it doesn't seem as though I've read a book unless I've written about it. It really seems the completion of the reading process.

No one ever knows if a book is good until they read the book.

I don't think of myself as a critic at all. I'm a reviewer and essayist. I mainly hope to share with others my pleasure in the books and authors I write about, though sometimes I do need to cavil and point out shortcomings.

Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.

Book reviews have never helped me. Most of them erred in their interpretations and their work has been a waste of time.

I never read articles about my books.

I don't read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I'm also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction.

It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think.

Critics, how I would love if you could clear the word 'sentimental' from your minds.

I say on the air all time, "if you take what I say as gospel, you're an idiot."

Dare to think for yourself.

Literary criticism has about it neither rigour nor proof. Where it is honest, it is passionate, private experience seeking to persuade.

We do not at present educate people to think but, rather, to have opinions, and that is something altogether different.

I must warn you that the books I like are not necessarily the ones I think are the best. I like them for various reasons not always easy to explain.