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The world is divided into two
kinds of people: those who have tattoos, and those who are afraid of
people with tattoos. — Author Unknown
The tattoo attracts and also repels precisely because it is
different. — Margo DeMello, Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural
History of the Modern Tattoo Community, 2000
A tattoo is a true poetic creation, and is always more than meets
the eye. As a tattoo is grounded on living skin, so its essence
emotes a poignancy unique to the mortal human condition. — V. Vale
and Andrea Juno, Modern Primitives
For westerners, the tattoo has always been a metaphor of difference.
— Margo DeMello, Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the
Modern Tattoo Community, 2000
There is no "underground" community, no dark den of drunken sailors
initiating themselves into manhood via cheap, ill-conceived
exercises in bodily perforation; it's just a group of people who
delight in using their bodies as billboards. — Joanne McCubrey,
"Walking Art: Tattoos," Mountain Democrat Weekend magazine, 9
February 1990
Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an
interesting past. — Jack London
Women, don't get a tattoo. That butterfly looks great on your breast
when you're twenty or thirty, but when you get to seventy, it
stretches into a condor. — Billy Elmer
You may lose your most valuable property through misfortune in
various ways. You may lose your house, your wife and other
treasures. But of your moko, you cannot be deprived except by death.
It will be your ornament and companion until your last day. — Netana
Whakaari of Waimana
I always look for a woman who has a tattoo. I see a woman with a
tattoo, and I'm thinking, okay, here's a gal who's capable of making
a decision she'll regret in the future. — Richard Jeni
For someone who likes tattoos, the most precious thing is bare skin.
— Cher
Ink to paper is thoughtful
Ink to flesh, hard-core.
If Shakespeare were a tattooist
We'd appreciate body art more.
— Carrie Latet
A man without tattoos is invisible to the Gods. — Iban Proverb, as
quoted on vanishingtattoo.com
Good tattoos aren't cheap and cheap tattoos aren't good. — Author
Unknown
You think it, I ink it. — Saying of tattooists
Tattoo. What a loaded word it is, rife with associations to goons,
goofs, bikers, tribal warriors, carnival artists, drunken sailors
and floozies. — Jon Anderson, "Epidermal Dalis," Chicago Tribune, 6
October 1994
Inking without a plan gives Booth freedom to explore the desires of
those seated in his chair, he says, to feed off their energy,
allowing his clients' demons to help guide the needle. — Joshua
Lipton, about tattoo artist Paul Booth, "Bad Skin," Rolling Stone,
28 March 2002
[P]rimitive tribes were certainly convinced that the spirit, having
escaped from the body at death, retained a replica of its earthly
tenement. They therefore used tattoo marks as a means of
identification in the next world and a passport to future happiness.
— Ronald Scutt
Beauty is skin deep. A tattoo goes all the way to the bone. — Vince
Hemingson
Tattooing is about personalizing the body, making it a true home and
fit temple for the spirit that dwells inside it.... Tattooing
therefore, is a way of keeping the spiritual and material needs of
my body in balance. — Michelle Delio
Your body is a temple, but how long can you live in the same house
before you redecorate? — Author Unknown
Tattoo the pristine flesh
What is permanent anyway?
This ink only lasts 'til the grave,
Skin and ideas decompose
That which we did compose.
— Corri Alius
And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and seer
of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on
his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a
mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in
his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one
volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his
own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore
destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment
whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. —
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
I want to get a tattoo of myself on my entire body, only two inches
taller. — Steven Wright
Tattoos are like marriage: it's a lifelong commitment, it hurts like
hell, and the color fades over time. — The Quote Garden
We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe;
the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. — Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Poet at the Breakfast Table, 1872
Think before you ink! — Author Unknown
Your necklace may break, the fau tree may burst, but my tattooing is
indestructible. It is an everlasting gem that you will take into
your grave. — Verse from a traditional tattoo artist's song, as
quoted on pbs.org, "Skin Stories: The Art and Culture of Polynesian
Tattoo," 2003
The perfect tattoo... the one I believe we are all struggling
toward... is the one that turned the jackass into a zebra. — Cliff
Raven
The universality of tattooing is a curious subject for speculation.
— James Cook, 1779
Not one great country can be named, from the polar regions in the
north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not
tattoo themselves. — Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
When the designs are chosen with care, tattoos have a power and
magic all their own. They decorate the body but they also enhance
the soul. — Michelle Delio
Quirky is sexy, like scars or chipped teeth. I also like tattoos -
they're rebellious. — Jennifer Aniston
[A] genuine tattoo.... tells a story. I like stories and tattoos, no
matter how well done, and if they don't tell a story that involves
you emotionally, then they're just there for decoration, then
they're not a valid tattoo. There has to be some emotional appeal or
they're not, to my way of thinking, a real tattoo. It tells people
what you are and what you believe in, so there's no mistakes. — Leo,
tattooist, 1993, quoted in Margo DeMello, Bodies of Inscription,
2000
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Quotations about Tattoos