After all, how many of us had tried to forget something traumatic...only to find it printed on the back of our eyelids, tattooed on our tongues?

Jordan tattoos the words "forgive me" in thick black letters down the inside of his arm so that when he looks at his wrist he will remember not to hate himself so much. What he keeps forgetting is that there is life after survival.

We all originally came from the woods; it is hard to eradicate from any of us the old taste for the tattoo and the war-paint; and the moment money gets into our pockets, it somehow or other breaks out in ornaments on our persons, without always giving refinement to our manners.

There's something really the matter with most people who wear tattoos. There's at least some terrible story. I know from experience that there's always something terribly flawed about people who are tattooed, above some little something that Johnny had done in the Navy, even though that's a bad sign...It's terrible. Psychologically it's crazy. Most people who are tattooed, it's the sign of some feeling of inferiority, they're trying to establish some macho identification for themselves.

إن لم نجد مَنْ يهزمنا ثانيةً هزمنا أنفسنا بأيدينا لئلا ننسى!

Tattoos...are the stories in your heart, written on your skin.

Tattoos are cool because they don’t belong on your body, but you put it there to say something about yourself. Much like my rolls of fat. That shit does not belong on a human body. And I put it there to say something about me. I don’t like fruit. I don’t like it! Long bike ride? I’m out. Hot dog eating contest? I’m listening.

Preacher walks away and stands for a spell staring out the cell window with his long, skinny hands folded behind him. Ben looks at those hands and shivers. What kind of a man would have his fingers tattooed that way? he thinks. The fingers of the right hand, each one with a blue letter beneath the gray, evil skin—L—O—V—E. And the fingers of the left hand done the same way only now the letters spell out H—A—T—E. What kind of a man? What kind of a preacher?

I finally understand why people get tattoos of those they have lost. The need to proclaim not merely the loss but the love, the continuity. I am my father’s daughter. It is an act of resistance and refusal: grief telling you it is over and your heart saying it is not; grief trying to shrink your love to the past and your heart saying it is present.

My hands could be considered deadly weapons. You see, I write with both of them.

Some people have things written all over their faces; the big guy had a couple of words misspelled in crayon on his.

Tattoos are social signifiers and they signify three important things: 1: Short time preferences. 2:Poor judgment. 3:Susceptibility to social influences.

We mortals sometimes cut a pitiable figure in our attempts at display. We may be sure of our own merits, yet fatally ignorant of the point of view from which we are regarded by our neighbour. Our fine patterns in tattooing may be far from throwing him into a swoon of admiration, though we turn ourselves all round to show them.

I would like a bat with the words WHAT A ROTTEN WICKET-KEEPER stamped in large letters on the back of it.