51 Quotes by Tony Harrison

Weeping for the dead's a waste of breath -they're lucky, they can't die again.

Our heads will happen cold when this is found.

Sweet pulp and sour skin -Or was it sweet outside, and sour within?

I spent a lot of time on recce. It is a kind of creative chaos, but I like the sense of creative serendipity.

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

You can make poems out of anger as well as tenderness. You can make poetry out of anything. It can be the ugliest of emotions. It doesn't have to be sweetness and light.

Looking back, fire images have been constant in my poetry. As a boy, it was my job to light the fire each morning, and I remember the celebratory bonfires at the end of the war. It was from staring into fire that I began my first poetry.

I really admire the great Japanese artists who could change their name three times in a lifetime. You could get rid of one and renew yourself.

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.'