“The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo.”
- From “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
This is Jennifer C.’s tattoo:
When I was young, I would lose myself in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. It was the most imaginative story I had ever heard. This illustration comes from the amazing John Tenniel – his images were always my favorite.
(31 votes, average: 4.61 out of 5)
Loading ...Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat: “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the cat, “Or you wouldn’t have come here.”
This is Jessica’s tattoo. She says:
In a moment of dazed insanity, I impulsively decided that I needed these words somewhere I could easily see them. When I’m losing my mind, I look at my arm and remember that I’m not the only crazy person… everyone is nuts.
(39 votes, average: 4.51 out of 5) Loading ...
This is Morgan’s tattoo:
The idea for this tattoo came from a quote out of Chuck Palahniuk’s book, Fight Club
. The quote says, “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we are free to do anything.”
I was faced with the decision of whether or not to use you’ve/you or we’ve/we. I came to the conclusion that I wanted this tattoo to represent not only myself but also my view on society. It didn’t feel right to use the word “you” because I felt as though it would then become about the person reading it and not about what I have overcome. I also felt that by saying “we” it would stay faithful to my cynicism towards society and how I believe that people do not truly understand what it means to be free inside their own minds, which is what the book is about in the first place.
This tattoo represents having strength and independence and losing all fear no matter what situations we are dealt in life. Most importantly it’s about learning to face your pain full on with your head held high instead of denying that it affects you in the first place.
(27 votes, average: 4.30 out of 5) Loading ...I posted Hannah’s Peter, Paul & Mary tattoo a long time ago. This is her new(er) tattoo.
“‘I’ll drop my final anchor with the wind howling in my ears above and the swish of bilge below me,’ he declared, ‘and that way I’ll go content.’ And when the time came, I’m sure he went content.”
- From Cradle of the Deep, the fabricated autobiography by Joan Lowell
(17 votes, average: 4.18 out of 5) Loading ...
This is Benjamin’s tattoo:
My tattoo is from Walt Whitman. The first printing of Leaves of Grass
(and none of the subsequent printings) had a preface with the following quote:
“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
I got this tattoo because the quote sums up my ethics very well, and I wanted to make those ethics a part of my body, plus the hope that it helps make my flesh a great poem.
(26 votes, average: 4.27 out of 5) Loading ...
This is April Steele’s tattoo:
The story goes that this phrase was shouted at young Ray Bradbury by a magician named Mr. Electrico at a carnival in 1932. Each night at the end of his show this magician would be “electrocuted” in front of the crowd and, using a sword, would knight all the children on the front row. In his own words: “When he reached me, he pointed his sword at my head and touched my brow. The electricity rushed down the sword, inside my skull, made my hair stand up and sparks fly out of my ears. He then shouted at me, ‘Live forever!’ I thought that was a wonderful idea, but how did you do it?”
It is difficult to do the rest of the story any justice–it gets so much better–so I urge anyone to go read it here. He claims that he started writing a few days later and has written every day of his life since.
I wanted a Bradbury tattoo for a long time but could never find the one image that I felt encompassed all the energy, wonder, and nostalgia of his work. When I read those two words for the first time it was like they were electric. They gave me goosebumps. To me, it encompassed both the individual desire to make some kind of permanent mark on the world as well as the universal imperative to always push forward. Whatever the thing is that drives humankind to keep experimenting, keep creating, keep going further into space (for better or for worse), is what Bradbury’s work has always meant to me. All of it was wrapped in this amazing two-word command. Plus, I think it would be pretty incredible to literally live forever, or at least long enough to see the end of the world!
Tattoo by Vanessa Waites at Underground Art in Memphis, TN.
Photo by Joey Miller of Memphis, TN.”
(34 votes, average: 4.47 out of 5) Loading ...This is Anna’s tattoo:
It’s basically a reminder to live life and to experience it and spend time with those I love, and to spend time doing what I love.
“Hershel did not possess a family of his own. He was not such a special person. He loved to read very much, and also to write. He was a poet, and he exhibited me many of his poems. I remember many of them. They were silly, you could say, and about love. He was always in his room writing those things, and never with people. I used to tell him, What good is all that love doing on paper? I said, Let love write on you for a little. But he was so stubborn. Or perhaps he was only timid.”
- Excerpt from Everything Is Illuminated
(46 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5) Loading ...Happy Family Day to certain Canadians. This is Emily’s tattoo.
“I decided that I wanted to make a very clear statement about my love and dedication to my family…specifically my mother, my father and my brother. For the first 25 years of my life it was just the four of us and this tattoo is a tribute to that very special time.”
“Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.”
- Anthony Brandt
(25 votes, average: 3.20 out of 5) Loading ...
This is Sarah’s tattoo:
I fell in love with Ulysses
by James Joyce when I was in college studying literature, identifying with the bumbling, conflicted Leopold Bloom.
When my life was recently turned upside down by heartache, I was reminded of this line from the “Hades” chapter, spoken by Bloom: “Plenty to see and hear and feel yet.”
I modified the line to bring out the main points, and had it done in white ink on the inside of my wrist. Most artists don’t like to do white ink tattoos, but I wanted this tattoo to be for me and not immediately visible to anyone else. It’s my daily reminder that no matter what unexpected turns that life can take, there’s always something new around the corner.
(55 votes, average: 4.58 out of 5) Loading ...
This is Nick’s tattoo:
Attached is a photograph of my own V.F.D. tattoo, located on the inside of my left ankle, from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
. It’s different from most you’ll see in that it’s based on Bret Helquist’s drawing in the ninth book, The Carnivorous Carnival (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 9)
. I chose this design over the other one because it was more obviously an eye, and less obviously the letters V.F.D.
(26 votes, average: 3.62 out of 5) Loading ...
