Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos

Submitted by Neal:

You’ll have to click on this one for the full size.

It’s a pull from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The number 42 is obvious for anyone who has read the book as being the answer to life, the universe and everything. The “don’t panic” on either side of the number 42 is also from the book, wherein Douglas Adam’s claims on the front of the actual Hitchhikers Guide (the one in the book not the book itself) it reads “Don’t Panic” in very friendly letters.

Artwork from Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Kathryn submitted this on behalf of her friend, who says:

The tattoo artist said that this is one of the weirdest tattoos he’s ever done and goes against everything he’s learned about tattoos–no solid lines, no strong blocks of color. But I think it’s absolutely perfect (albeit still a bit swollen in this picture), after two hundred dollars and two hours in the chair. “People where you live,” the little prince said, “grow five thousand roses in one garden… yet they don’t find what they’re looking for…” “They don’t find it,” I answered. “And yet what they’re looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water…” “Of course,” I answered. And the little prince added, “But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”

Submitted by Kurt:

Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—’Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”

- Excerpt from East of Eden by John Steinbeck

From The Shape of Things to Come by H.G. Wells.  Zach Sawyer says:

This tattoo was inspired by the H.G. Wells novel “The Shape of Things To Come” shortened to “Things to Come”, as a form of self confirmation. In a way, it was kind of my way of stating that this is who I am and who I plan on being.

Submitted by Bonnie:

Orwell and his writings came to me at a pivotal point in my life. When I read Nineteen Eighty-Four, it changed my life and the way I looked at the world. I got this tattoo to pay homage to Orwell and to show my rebellion against any government that manipulates their citizens into thinking the way the government wants them to. Many people see the tattoo and think I believe the words of it, but actually it is a reminder to myself to think before accepting as truth whatever someone tells me.

“War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.”
- From 1984 by George Orwell

This tattoo from “Run Into Flowers” by M83 was submitted by Luke:

For a good, solid year this song was my soundtrack to everything; a constant point of reference at a time when everything shifted. As such, it seemed only fitting to etch a memorial to it into my skin. As you do. However, after I had this tattoo done I quickly discovered two things:

1. I had misunderstood the heavily distorted vocals in the song. Where I had heard, harvested and believed ‘I want to run to you’, the song actually says ‘I want to run into’. Flowers we can only presume.

2. The words I did end up having tattooed across my shoulders are far more famous as a lyric from a Bryan Adams song. I heard the song for the first time a few weeks after the tattoo was done. Timing is everything.

Nonetheless, I feel it stands as a proper memorial to the time. Misheard as they may have been, these words were my version of events. So rather than being a flat tribute to a band, the tattoo became instead a personal and flawed declaration of love for a piece of music that seemed to permit a lot of what followed. And one that has absolutely nothing, at all to do with Bryan Adams. So stop asking.

Tattoo from The BFG by Roald Dahl:

Submitted by Maren:

The illustration is by Quentin Blake. It’s on the back of my right arm.

Roald Dahl was and still is my favorite author and the Big Friendly Giant is my favorite
literary character. He steals nightmares and gives children good dreams… it’s just a
cute and lovely story.

Submitted by hannah, who says:

My mom read me the first 4 books before she passed away & Harry Potter was always our thing. Then when the 5th book came out, I didn’t want to read it because I had always associated it with my mom and she wasn’t there to share it with me. But then the 6th book came out, and I picked up the 5th one, read that and then the 6th, and there was no looking back. I remembered why I loved Harry Potter so much. When the 7th book came out, and I read the part about Dumbledore, my mom’s favorite character (and one of my own haha), leaving Harry the snitch in his will, and the message left on it, I knew that this was something special. It always kind of toyed around with it in the back of my head. So then I went for it, and got it, and I love it. It reminds me of my mom, and Harry Potter, and the things she didn’t get to read, but I know she would have loved.

“The Snitch I caught in my first ever Quidditch march?” said Harry. “Don’t you remember?”
Hermione looked bemused. Ron, however, gasped, pointing frantically from Harry to the Snitch and back again until he found his voice.
“THat was the one you nearly swallowed!”
“Exactly,” said Harry, and with his heart beating fast, he pressed his mouth to the Snitch.
It did not open. Frustration and bitter disappointment welled up inside him: He lowered the golden sphere, but then Hermione cried out.
“Writing! There’s writing on it, quick, look!”
He nearly dropped the Snitch in surprise and excitement, Hermione was quite right. Engraved upon the smooth golden surface, where seconds before there had been nothing, were five words written in the thin, slanting handwriting that Harry recognized as Dumbledore’s:
I open at the close.

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

This tattoo was submitted by Amanda, and it is from the film version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Tattoo from The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein:

Submitted by Carly Neely:

This is the carving the little boy etches into the tree. He later carves in another but that one is removed when he cuts down the trunk of the tree. This carving always remains til the end.
I always related to the giving tree. I think a lot of people misinterpret the story. It’s sad. There’s a lot of pain in loving someone so much who is busy not loving you back like the little boy, but whenever the boy returns, the tree is happy, and that’s all that matters to her at the end of the day.

Submitted by Tara:

The tattoo is on my hip.

It is the Golden Apple from the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea and/or the Principia Discordia by Malaclypse the Younger.

This tattoo was submitted by SpiffySilpion, and is “the word ‘strength‘ spelled out in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Elvish script Tengwar.”

Submitted by SpiffySilpion:

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”

- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Submitted by Jessyintheskywithdiamonds:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

- e. e. cummings, i carry your heart with me

Submitted by Katie:

I got the tattoo when I was going through a series of events I ended up losing a large number of those who were close to me. I got to a point where I was absolutely miserable and couldn’t find a good reason to wake up in the morning. I work in dorms and during my hard times some of my residents who I’d helped quite a bit throughout the year saw through my “I’m fine”’s and would come to me and would talk to me about all the different ways I’d helped them. In the midst of everything piling up it just reminded me that despite whatever BS I’ve gone through if I’m still able to wake up in the morning and help make someone else’s life better then my own will always have meaning. (The little flurries you see around the text are from a dandelion that’s on my back.)

Submitted by Cassie W:

“We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.”

- Che Guevara

Submitted by Pistol:

This quote is from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. After reading this book my mind seemed to be opened to a world I had been searching for but was incapable of finding myself. A place where people are respected for their virtues, not for their vices. Where ability is placed above need.

People constantly ask me what it means, who he is. It is difficult to articulate all of Ayn Rand’s beliefs and philosophies. After all, there is a 1200 page book based solely on the answer to this question. In short, it is a cry of desperation and a beacon of hope in the dark. I just pray some day an attractive man comes up to me and, after reading it, tells me what an amazing novel it was so we can get married and live happily ever after. It’s ok to dream isnt it?

Submitted by Heather Sundell:

Shel Silverstein was a huge part of my childhood. I was in love with his poems and his writing has greatly influenced my own. I loved this poem because it reminds me that there is always more to life than what you know . I also actually typed this on my grandmothers ancient typewriter. Also…it’s just pretty effin’ rad.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

- Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Its an old maori proverb meaning “turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you”.
Need I say more.

Submitted by Michele Polak:

“In women’s speech, as in their writing, that element which never stops resonating, which, once we’ve been permeated by it, profoundly and imperceptibly touched but it, retains the power of moving us—that element is the song: the first music from the first voice of love which is alive in every woman. Why this privileged relationship with the voice? Because no woman stockpiles as many defenses for countering the drives as does a man. You don’t build walls around yourself, you don’t forego pleasure as “wisely” as he. Even if phallic mystification has generally contaminated good relationships, a woman is never far from “mother” (I mean outside her role functions: the “mother as noname and as source of goods). There is always within her at least a little of that good mother’s milk. She writes in white ink.”

- Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa”