This is Katie C.’s tattoo:

The reason I got it was because I can really relate to having many paths in my life I might take, and I want to remind myself that if I wait around for the perfect, right one, eventually all my choices will be gone.

- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7

(16 votes, average: 3.81 out of 5)

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This is Emily’s tattoo of the Ancient Greek aphorism “Know Thyself” (nosce te ipsum):

It means that to know and understand yourself if to be able to understand others. It also can be very literal in that it is just important to know who you are inside and out. I learned about this in my political philosophy class in college… I read Plato’s Republic and my professor gave a lecture on the quote “know thyself” and I loved it!

(12 votes, average: 2.75 out of 5)

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This is Sammuel’s tattoo:

i love the poem – the sentiment (ie- the contradiction that is love or that is ecstatic love).  the voice here can only be chaste when ravished.  and what does it mean to be ravished by god?  this picture was taken the night i had it done.

- Batter My Heart, Three Person’d God (Holy Sonnet XIV) by John Donne

(12 votes, average: 3.42 out of 5)

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This is Chelsea’s tattoo.

“Written down here, gentle reader
It seems too good to be true
But there’s a girl in Kansas City
With my favourite tattoo
Oh why would I lie to you?
This was in another century
Somewhere near the summer’s end
The fahrenheit was frightening
I was awake the whole weekend
Invited to a barbecue
I found refuge in the kitchen
Discussing post-war US literature
With a girl whose upper arm read “fiction”
Like it might have been typewritten
I asked her its significance
She said she sometimes took reminding
What she wanted to be doing
Whether reading it or writing”

- “Fiction” by The Lucksmiths

(24 votes, average: 3.96 out of 5)

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This is Will’s tattoo:

This was my first tattoo, though I’ve been thinking about it for … well, a long time. The phrase comes from Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” series, from Delirium’s sundial and means “time is broken.” For me, it was always a play on having no sense of time, but realizing that memories are persistent beyond any real sense of time. I can remember what happened ten years ago better than I can what I did for lunch yesterday. I think most people are like that. Having it just above where most people wear a watch is just part of the joke.

(9 votes, average: 3.78 out of 5)

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“And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!']
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: 'But how his arms and legs are thin!']
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

This is Callie’s tattoo:

This is a question asked by a man in the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot (my favorite poet).  In the poem, he tries over and over to muster up the courage to pursue his dreams, but his fears and doubts always stop him.  This is my personal reminder everyday, a way to constantly ask myself, “Am I brave enough to make a difference in the world?”  I want to be able to answer, “Yes.”

(36 votes, average: 4.03 out of 5)

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“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”

- From The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.

This is Xin’s tattoo:

The line is from C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair, which is the 6th book in the Chronicles of Narnia series. It is spoken by Puddleglum in defiant response to the Witch-queen as she tries to enchant and persuade the characters into believing that whatever they cannot perceive with their senses must be imaginary, and as such, that Narnia and Aslan cannot possibly exist.

As a literature student fresh out of her BA and about to begin her Masters, I do think that there is something to be said about stories being more true that real life. As an aspiring English teacher, I affirm that one must never limit oneself to an understanding of the world in purely scientific or economic terms. As a reader of books, I believe that a life utterly devoid of the rejuvenating power of imagination can only leave us so much the poorer for it. Yet as a Christian who has been called upon to defend her faith, I am constantly coming back to the fact that what I believe in is indeed considered foolishness by so many others.

I do not know if I would die for a story. But I do know that if there is indeed such a being as a God who loved us enough to die for us, then surely I can do no less in giving up everything that I have in this life to seek His face.

The ink was done by Carlos at Lotus Land Tattoo.

(40 votes, average: 4.45 out of 5)

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This is Tyler’s tattoo from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life“.

Life is real! Life is earnest
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

I got it because this poem has always spoken volumes to me and serves more or less as my maxim for living life day to day.

(33 votes, average: 3.52 out of 5)

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This is Courtney’s tattoo, which reads “Dream” in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Tengwar script.

I was raised on all of his books and they were the ones that first taught me out to dream big and dream wildly, but also to never stop dreaming those things. I think that a small part of me was always able to retain some of my childhood because of his writing. It seemed only fitting to write it on me somewhere.

(32 votes, average: 4.44 out of 5)

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This is Elizabeth’s alphabet tattoo:

This tattoo is, obviously, the alphabet. I studied literature at Bennington College and wanted a tattoo that completely encompassed my interests and passions; I couldn’t decide on any one quote, so I decided on the elements that make up all words, sentences, and paragraphs. The tattoo was done by Mike, at Bleeding Heart in Lee’s Summit, MO. He’s the greatest. The font is Georgia, and I get asked that all the time.

(53 votes, average: 4.26 out of 5)

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