There's a kind of despair about whether art can really do anything, but you have to incorporate that despair into the way you work. I try to soak my work in my sense of futility and fury.

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• Tony Harrison:

  The imagination has its limits, and you have to face up to that.

• Tony Harrison:

  I'd rather climb Everest than go for a walk in the park.

• Tony Harrison:

  I was brought up on music hall, and at the same time, I was studying Greek at the age of 12.

• Tony Harrison:

  I like a direct relationship between actor and audience.

• Tony Harrison:

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• Tony Harrison:

  I'm hoping to have a ninth decade like Matisse's.

• Tony Harrison:

  You litter poems with too much learning when you're younger.

• Tony Harrison:

  I hate being called poet/dramatist/translator/director. 'Poet' covers it all for me.

• Tony Harrison:

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• Helen Vendler:

  I wouldn't be very happy if a poet read what I had written and said, 'What a peculiar thing to say