Tattoo Culture >> Tattoo Quotes   

TATTOO QUOTES

Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past. Jack London - 1883

"As for the primitive, I hark back to it because we are still very primitive. How many thousands of years of culture, think you, have rubbed and polished at our raw edges? One probably; at the best, no more than two. And that takes us back to screaming savagery, when, gross of body and deed, we drank blood from the skulls of our enemies, and hailed as highest paradise the orgies and carnage of Valhalla." - JACK LONDON

"The universality of tattooing is a curious subject for speculation"
Captain James Cook - 1779

"With the Haidas, however, every mark has its meaning …" - James Swan, Tattoo Marks of the Haida, 1878.

"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, 1871

Everybody wants to see the pictures, and yet nobody wants to see them. 
Ray Bradbury -- The Illustrated Man

Primitive 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, Art, Sex and Symbol, 1974, p. 63)

A great tattoo is a statement, not a style. And getting it is a journey, not a destination. - Vince Hemingson

The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who have tattoos, and those who are afraid of people with tattoos. -- Author Unknown

Death could come at any time, Angelina Jolie says. The tattoo is a strong reminder to live fully in the moment and never have regrets. (About her first tattoo of the Japanese Kanji for Death) I didn't get the tattoo for the dark reason everyone thinks.

Usually all my tattoos came at good times. A tattoo is something permanent when you've made a self-discovery, or something you've come to a conclusion about. - Angelina Jolie - 2003

“It’s Aslan, the lion from The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. It’s a symbol of my hellish childhood. I struggled through my oppressive teenage years and when I turned 18 I escaped. Like Aslan I was finally free.” - Christina Ricci

“I dropped my pants in a tattoo parlor in Amsterdam. I woke up in a waterbed with this funky-looking dragon with a blue tongue on my hip. I realized I made a mistake, so a few months later I got a cross to cover it. When my pants hang low, it looks like I'm wearing a dagger!” Angelina Jolie

Every time I get a tattoo, my parents say they’ll disown me. I have to get them airbrushed for Charmed. Witches don’t have tattoos, I guess.
Alyssa Milano

It's kind of a show-biz lizard [in a top hat]. Tattoos to me are the outward symbol of the inward change within my soul. Nicolas Cage

I chose a sunflower because when darkness descends they close up to regenerate. But I really wish I'd never had the tattoo in the first place. Clean, clear skin is always better. Halle Berry

My skin is my canvas. The artwork on it represents something that is very powerful and meaningful in my life. I look at my skin as something of a living diary because all my tattoos represent a time in my life. And I never wish to shut the door on the past, so I carry it all with me. Dave Navarro

I'm planning my most ambitious tattoo yet. You can never have enough tats.
Amy Winehouse

Giving birth was easier than having a tattoo.
Nicole Appleton

Quirky is sexy, like scars or chipped teeth. I also like tattoos - they're rebellious. Jennifer Aniston

Tattoos are like stories - they're symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it symbolizes, is really beautiful. Pamela Anderson

My body is a journal in a way. It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist.  Johnny Depp

"Every time I get a tattoo, it’s a little fuck-you to anyone who tells me not to. It’s weird to be part of Hollywood, which tries to control every aspect of people, from what they say to the color of their hair. And I like the way getting a tattoo feels. If I’m depressed, it’s nice to get one and deal with the pain. I have one all the way down to my ribs. It hurt, but it felt good–like twisting a loose tooth. I’m not kidding when I say that if I ever lose a role because of my tattoos, I’ll quit Hollywood and go to work at Costco." ~ Megan Fox

I think I have enough tattoos for now. If I get any others, I'll probably do my kids initials. Niki Taylor

I did what I could to move the muscles in my back so the tattoo could sort of stretch out. I always wished I had more muscles that could crinkle up.
Ralph Fiennes For the film, Red Dragon (2002) as Francis Dolarhyde

I have this huge lion tattoo embossed on my arm. I was a little worried as to how we would cover it up. But my makeup man covered the tattoo with makeup. It took close to two hours.
Sanjay Dutt

I got my first tattoo, a Playboy Bunny, because I was young, dumb and drunk... Anna Nicole Smith

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. -- Comedian Richard Jeni

Vince Vaughn in the hit film The Wedding Crashers - "Tattoo on the lower back. Might as well be a bulls-eye."

I wouldn't care if they tattoo Festus all over. He's been good to me.
Ken Curtis - American singer and actor best known for his role as "Festus Haggen" on CBS' long-running western drama, Gunsmoke, which he portrayed from 1964 to 1975.

"You put a tattoo on yourself with the knowledge that this body is yours to have and enjoy while you're here. You have fun with it, and nobody else can control (supposedly) what you do with it. That's why tattooing is such a big thing in prison: it's an expression of freedom—one of the only expressions of freedom there. They can lock you down, control everything, but 'I've got my mind, and I can tattoo my body—alter it my way as an act of personal will.' " DON ED HARDY

The only difference between a tattooed person and a person who isn't tattooed is that a tattooed person doesn't care if you're tattooed or not.
(Sign often seen in tattoo shops)

Beauty is skin deep. A tattoo goes all the way to the bone.
Vince Hemingson

There's something really the matter with most people who wear tattoos, he says. I know from experience there's something terribly flawed about people who are tattooed above the little something Johnny had done in the Navy, even though that's also a bad sign. (Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, interviewed more than one hundred killers over a period of ten years and says eighty percent of them have one thing in common: Tattoos)

The Greek philosopher Bion of Borysthenes (circa 300 B.C.) described the brutally tattooed face of his father, a former slave, as "a narrative of his master's harshness."

“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 Jr. (1841-1935)

For someone who likes tattoos, the most precious thing is bare skin. Cher

The perfect tattoo... the one I believe we are all struggling toward... is the one that turned the jackass into a zebra. Cliff Raven

Good tattoos aren't cheap and cheap tattoos aren't good. (A sign seen in many tattoo shops)

"Stewed, Screwed and Tattooed", a colourful synopsis of shore leave for many sailors after having spent many months at sea! A good port of call for men who worked at sea often earned it's reputation by the qualities - or lack thereof - of it's drinking establishments, women and tattoo artists.

A quote is just a tattoo on the tongue.
William F. DeVault

Former Chicago Bull Jud Buechler said Michael Jordan wanted "me and [teammate] Steve Kerr to get tattoos" after the Bulls won their first championship. "I thought about it but didn't do it because I knew my mom, wife, and mother-in-law would kill me."

"White folks are not going to come to see a bunch of guys with tattoos, with cornrows. I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks different, they're stupid."
CHARLES BARKLEY

Love lasts forever, but a tattoo lasts six months longer. (Anon)

In 19th Century England, tattooing flourished as nowhere else in Europe, largely thanks to traveling seamen who would come back with permanent souvenirs of their travels on their arms. In 1862, it gained Royal sanction and members of the Royal family, from the Prince of Wales to King Edward VII, acquired tattoos. By 1890 the fad had spread to the US and tattoos were seen on members of the exclusive New York Racquet Club. - It is certainly the most vulgar and barbarous habit the eccentric mind of fashion ever invented. It may do for an illiterate seaman, but hardly for an aristocrat. Society men in England were the victims of circumstance when the Prince of Wales had his body tattooed. Like a flock of sheep driven by their master they had to follow suit. (Socialite of the day Ward McAllister who complained to the press about the fad) - Strange how this attitude has endured to the 21st century...

Think before you Ink! (Sign often seen in tattoo shops)

"The human body is always treated as an image of society." ANTHROPOLOGIST MARY DOUGLAS

"A man without tattoos is invisible to the Gods." - Iban Proverb - Mingatt Anak Casa (Akai Basai), Iban Headman on the Sekerang River, Sarawak, Borneo - from The Vanishing Tattoo Documentary

"The woman must bear children and the man must be tattooed."
Polynesian Proverb

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 Te Waimana-Kākū, Tuhoe, 1921

"An everlasting gem that you will take into your grave."
Line from a traditional Polynesian song about tattooing

Richard Leakey - A quote from "Origins Reconsidered - In Search of What Makes Us Human".
"Each society weaves its own culture, a complex fabric of many elements, each element giving special meaning to the others. It is often difficult for someone from outside a particular culture to understand the fabric as an entity. Differences in language, in values, and in mythology create barriers to understanding. Pluck a single thread from the fabric, and the foreigner is even less likely to comprehend its significance. The painted, engraved, and carved images of prehistory are threads from past cultures, and we are the foreigners trying to interpret their meaning. Perhaps more than anything else, art can be fully understood only in the context of the culture that produced it."

In Galatians 6:17, Saint Paul says, "From this time onward let no one trouble me; for, as for me, I bear, branded on my body, the scars of Jesus as my Master."

"Tattoos aren't meant for everybody and they're too goddamn good for some people." Lyle Tuttle, tattoo artist, author, and lecturer.

"I'm the man who ruined everything." (Lyle Tuttle on the popularity of modern tattooing)

Sonny and another Hells Angel who was at the meeting thought they were beyond a little patch so they headed down to a local tattoo shop in Oakland and were the first to get the famous One Percent tattoos.
Chuck Zito - a member of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels, amateur boxer, martial artist, celebrity bodyguard, stuntman and actor.

Sometimes I bust out and do things so permanent. Like tattoos and marriage. Drew Barrymore

People have asked me, what about your tattoos when you're ninety? Why would it bother me then? I would still want to get tattooed even when I'm a grandmother. Nicole Miller, noted fashion designer

Everybody gets the tattoo they deserve. (actor David Duchovny, who has a tattoo of a compass on his ankle, [with N, S, E, West, his daughter's name] as Fox Mulder on the X-Files, a show Thomas Lockhart worked on in the famous Tattoo episode)

In the 19th century, Field Marshal Earl Roberts said that "every officer in the British army should be tattooed with his regimental crest. Not only does this encourage esprit de corps but also assists in the identification of casualties."

Check out Finger / Knuckle Tattoos  for some great 8 letter quotes!

Tattoo Culture >> Tattoo Quotes