Literary Tattoos

I can't recall if I've written about this subject before. I think I have touched on it, but more in a general sense instead of writing about my own. If I do repeat something I've said already though, I do apologize. Regardless, I have desecrated my body at least thrice more since the time I would have written of tattoos here, if in fact I did visit the topic, so there will still be new things to say besides.

Many people have been surprised once they discovered that I am tattooed. I suppose some don't expect the fairly reserved, straitlaced, moderately conservative straight-A student to have any ink. And I don't have a tiny-butterfly-that-I hide-from-my-parents type of tattoo. I have tattoos plural, and some of those are pretty visible. I know some people absolutely despise tattoos and/or find them unattractive and while I really dig them, I respect your viewpoint. This post though isn't to argue the merits of tattoos or the assumptions people make about those who have them. I just wanted to talk about literary tattoos, specifically.

My first tattoo was music-related, in honor of love of music and of my father, who is a musician. (See him onstage at the 1991 Grammys here; he's the bassist on the right, next to the drums.) My second was a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Others that followed a word in Elvish (Quenya to be precise, a language invented by Tolkien); a quote from Thoreau, a line from the opera Tosca (technically not literary but I'm lumping it in because I think a libretto counts), a phrase from Kierkegaard's Either/Or that I've adopted as in Italian part of my personal credo, a quote attributed to Thomas Aquinas, and a quote of unknown origin but that could have come from either an Englishman, a Turk, or an Italian guy. I researched all three and none (thankfully) seemed evil; the person who uttered the words on my body is almost as important as the words themselves, so I was relieved. In addition to these longer phrases, I also have a smattering of a few single word tattoos in different places. I used to check a tumblr (remember tumblr!?) regularly. I see the name has been slightly altered (likely in order to cause less offense) but I just Googled it and it (or some version of it, or a similar creation) still remains. I also remember being fascinated this project, 'Skin' where an author wrote a story and asked for volunteers to each have one word (or punctuation) from the story tattooed on their body. I think I have posted here about about Skin before.

Anyway, I remember having a conversation with my older brother when I was in high school. I knew I wanted to get a tattoo sometime during adulthood and I wasn't sure what to get. He said, "Well, you like words, right? So get words." (Thanks, Joey!) And I thought, yeah you're right. I also have a few tattoos that are not words or connected to literature, but many of them are. So, readers, do any of you all have literary tattoos?