TATTOO QUOTES IV

quotations about tattoos

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My tattoos are something that I have always kept very private. Believe it or not. To me, they aren't "things" that I got just to show them off. My tattoos aren't objects for me to brag about in hopes of building my ego. Yet, they are small reminders of my story. Lessons that have had a large impact on me and my journey. I think of them as pieces to my puzzle. No matter how big or small, they put me together. I love them, and I don't give a damn if you love them or not.

MACI BOOKOUT

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Today, people with tattoos, body piercings, and brands are everywhere. They are shown in advertisements, on television shows, and in magazine and newspaper photographs. Even a glamorous toy icon, Barbie, comes with temporary tattoos.

KATHLYN GAY

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Even though tattoos are visible scars on the body, they may represent that which cannot be grasped or achieved. In this sense they are fitting representations of desire which embeds elements of resistance, since that which is desired is by definition unattainable.

KARIN BEELER

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Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Tags: Henry David Thoreau

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Islamic tattoos are thought to possess magical properties and are most effective when applied to the skin while someone recites from the Koran.

JOHN STEVENS

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What's more, tattoos hurt -- or so I'd been assured -- so I wasn't going to start with anything too massive and/or multicoloured. (The novelist Anthony McGowan informs me that the Samoan word for 'coward' is the same as 'unfinished tattoo'.)

ASH SMITH

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What is more permanent, and more meaningful than a tattoo? A tattoo you can play back. Because sound tattoos are a now a thing, which means that you can have up to a minute of audio inked onto your skin. And you can listen to it through your smartphone.

MIRANDA LARBI

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Tattoos set you apart. Besides being a colorful accessory to any ensemble, they convince your parents once and for all that you are a lost cause.

AMY LINDEN

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Tattoo artists aren't meant to be human copy machines. Some of them have even gone to school for this. Instead of presenting your artist with a precise logo with no wiggle room, pitch them a few ideas and let them draw something up for you. You'll get an original piece of work, and your tattoo artist will be relieved.

DEVON HANNAH

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Although tattoos have always been thought by some to represent the barbaric "mark of Cain" branded on the flesh of criminals, condemned prisoners, outcasts, drunken sailors, ruffians, and other riffraff, they have also served as potent religious symbols since civilization began. Indeed, rather than sealing a pact with the devil, many tattoos signify an alliance with the divine.

JOHN STEVENS

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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

Tags: Herman Melville

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One person's need to express individuality is another's sign of rebellion or spiritual practice. We memorialize an event, person or rite of passage with tattoos. We add them as body art or a line of script that sums up a philosophy of life.

MARY BERGIN

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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

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I think tattoos are a way to express yourself without words. Without having to explain yourself, people can look at your tattoos and see who you are.

JODI MORGAN

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