Tony Harrison Quotes

Author Image

Tony Harrison

Profession : Poet

Birth : April 30, 1937

I'm not the sort of person who reads much about himself.

Tony Harrison

I think poems belong as much in the news pages as the literary pages. A lot of people throw aside the literary pages! Whereas everybody looks at the news section.

Tony Harrison

Why shouldn't poetry address what happened yesterday and be published in the newspaper?

Tony Harrison

Yes, I've got inwardness and tenderness, but I also get angry and vituperative, and you have to honour that as well.

Tony Harrison

The first thing you see in my hallway is a large 18th-century bust of Milton, who stares at me as I watch TV and reminds me of the grave and committed role of the poet. Although he was blind, Milton had one of the most unswerving gazes of all English poets.

Tony Harrison

I often find myself quoting from Victor Hugo after one of my theatrical ventures. 'Now that my play is a failure,' he once said, 'I find I love it all the more.' I first quoted that after 'Square Rounds' at the Olivier in 1992.

Tony Harrison

Statues are one of the ways I try to test the traditions of European culture against the most modern destructive forces. I often make a point of seeking them out and have used them as mouthpieces in my film poetry, as with Heinrich Heine in 'The Gaze of the Gorgon.'

Tony Harrison