These Harry Potter tattoos belong to Sharon and Chris:

My husband, Chris, and I got Harry Potter tattoos on the same day. I got a Golden Snitch on my thigh which might serve as the basis for a larger Harry Potter piece around it. Chris got a Dark Mark replicated right where it should go: on his left forearm. He claims that it no longer burns, but I’m not so certain. ;)

Similar Posts:

• I Open at the Close
• Harry Potter Week, Day 7
• Harry Potter Week, Day 6
• 2 Poems
• Harry Potter Week, Day 1

Jamie’s tattoo is a tribute to her grandfather, who passed away in 2008.  It was done by Rich at South Shore Tattoo on Long Island.

This was posted as a part of “So it Goes” Saturdays. The phrase “so it goes” appears in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five 116 times. Can you help me collect 116 “so it goes” tattoos? 16 down, 100 to go.

Similar Posts:

• So it goes #9
• So it goes #13
• So it goes #8
• So it goes #15
• So it goes #12

Is this your Where the Wild Things Are tattoo?

Photos (1, 2, 3) by p22earl; republished under a Creative Commons license.

Similar Posts:

• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 6
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 5
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 3
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 4
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 1

This is Peder’s Where the Wild Things Are tattoo.

Photo by Niklas; republished under a Creative Commons license.

Similar Posts:

• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 5
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 3
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 4
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 7
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 1

This Where the Wild Things Are tattoo is on a stranger!  E-mail me if this is yours.

Photo by love not fear; republished under a Creative Commons license.

Similar Posts:

• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 6
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 3
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 4
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 1
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 7

This is Miss Grace’s tattoo of one of the Wild Rumpus scenes from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak:

I’ve wanted this tattoo for almost a decade.  My favorite book as a child, my son’s favorite book now.  I am a children’s services librarian by training (although sadly not by trade – I’m currently in a bookstore), and I wrote extensively on the work of Maurice Sendak, and specifically Where the Wild Things Are, in conjunction with earning my master’s degree.  I’m going to have have it colored true to the original illustration.  Tattooist is George Campise.

Similar Posts:

• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 1
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 3
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 6
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 5
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 2

This is Alex’s Where the Wild Things Are tattoo.

Similar Posts:

• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 5
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 6
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 4
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 1
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 7

Deana’s Where the Wild Things Are tattoo comes with a complicated story:

I got this when my son was 9 months old.  His name is Max, and he was born with a very rare metabolic disease which caused a severe form of epilepsy.  At 4 months old, we had surgery to remove the part of his brain that was causing 250 seizures a day.  The whole time he lay in the pediatric ICU at the Children’s Hospital, we would tell him to keep fighting…to ROAR!!!  He pulled through, and we made it out of there with our son.

I always loved the name Max, and was certain I would name my son that.  I could have never imagined how he would turn out to be such a fighter.  Or all the Wild Things he would have to face in his short life.

I chose this particular scene in the book because, this is the point where Max met the Wild Things, and tamed them with his magic trick.  And they called him the most wild thing of all.

“…And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars…and gnashed their terrible teeth…and rolled their terrible eyes…and showed their terrible claws…till Max said “BE STILL!” and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once…and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all…and made him the king of all wild things.” “And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”…”

That’s how I see my Max.  As the most wild thing of all.  The one who told all the other wild things to BE STILL!  And the rest of his life has been, and forever will be the wild rumpus.

Similar Posts:

• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 4
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 1
• you’ll end up looking at the sky
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 3
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 7

This is Elana Max’s Max tattoo from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are:

This is Max shipping off to the land of the wild things. Plus a Japanese wave, just for fun.
Where the Wild Things Are was my very favorite book.  And still is, really. Max and I share a name, and a very special bond.
I hope Spike Jonze doesn’t mess that up.

Similar Posts:

• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 4
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 3
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 6
• Where the Wild Things Are Week, Day 5
• Max

This is Sarah Shay’s tattoo:

Yep. It’s a semicolon. I’m a grammar and punctuation nerd by nature, and I love the semicolon in particular because, as many semicolon-haters will eagerly point out, you don’t “need” them. Unlike the more utilitarian period or comma, a semicolon never really needs to be used. It’s a stylistic choice; you can create really elegant sentences with them if you know what you are doing. I’m considering an interrobang on the other wrist.

Similar Posts:

• Semicolon
• bright smoke, cold fire
• A Tale of Two Cities
• Birdcage
• All You Need Is Love

I originally came across the poem in one of my most beloved books, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, so I have extra affection for it.

Dream Dust
Gather out of star-dust,
Earth-dust,
Cloud-dust,
Storm-dust,
And splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust,
Not for sale.

- By Langston Hughes

Similar Posts:

• Books!
• all that we see or seem
• Edgar Allan Poe
• A dream within a dream
• Theme Week: Neil Gaiman, Day 5

Isadora explains her tattoo:

my tattoo has multiple meanings.. ‘Until I Find You‘ is the title of a book by John Irving, a book that made me understand a lot of things about myself, and it basically is a physical manifestation/visual representation of my broken heart (how sad!), I am not one to talk about things so I think my tattoo says all that i don’t say. ‘Clair de Lune’ is there because it is to me the most beautiful piece of music in the world (Debussy), and the dove is the holy spirit, taken from the main stained glass window in St. Peters (rome) and designed by Bernini. All three of my tattoos make me remember that there is and will be beauty in life.

Similar Posts:

• If
• Broken Promises For Broken Hearts
• do you?
• The Beatles
• Elliott Smith

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

- Excerpt from A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Similar Posts:

• Edgar Allan Poe
• A dream within a dream
• all we live to know is known
• do you?
• Theme Week: Neil Gaiman, Day 5

This tattoo is on Samm from Chicago:

Vonnegut is easily my favorite author.  I chose this tattoo for the same reason everyone else has; I’m a worrier and it reminds me that not everything is in my control.

This was posted as a part of “So it Goes” Saturdays. The phrase “so it goes” appears in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five 116 times. Can you help me collect 116 “so it goes” tattoos? 15 down, 101 to go.

Similar Posts:

• So it goes #9
• So it goes #13
• So it goes #8
• So it goes #16
• So it goes #12

It’s from a Peter, Paul & Mary song that we sing at the camp I went to for 10 years, which meant a lot by itself, but I also love the word ‘if’ and its possibilities.

“If I had wings no one would ask me should I fly
The bird sings, no one asks why.
I can see in myself wings as I feel them
If you see something else, keep your thoughts to yourself,
I’ll fly free then.

Yesterday’s eyes see their colors fading away
They see their sun turning to grey
You can’t share in a dream, that you don’t believe in
If you say that you see and pretend to be me
You won’t be then.

How can you ask if I’m happy goin’ my way?
You might as well ask a child at play!
There’s no need to discuss or understand me
I won’t ask of myself to become something else
I’ll just be me!

If I had wings no one would ask me should I fly
The bird sings, and no one asks her why.
I can see in myself wings as I feel them
If you see something else, keep your thoughts to yourself,
I’ll fly free then.”

- “If I Had Wings” by Peter, Paul & Mary

Similar Posts:

• Blind Melon
• Hope is the Thing With Feathers
• Poison the Well
• all that we see or seem
• Theme Week: Neil Gaiman, Day 5

I encountered this poem when I was 17 in my literary class during my junior year of high school. I was going through a really rocky period in my life, and I found a calm in reading Robert Frost’s poetry, especially when I read this poem. It is my favorite. I had originally wanted to get the entire last stanza, but I realized that A) it would be really huge, and B) it wasn’t necessary. Although at first when I walked into the tattoo shop (The Parlour Tattoo, Eugene, OR) and the jolly/cynical desk man and the very attractive tattoo artist (the man who ended up DOING my tattoo) told me how large it would be, I was kind of crushed. In fact, I was really upset. But the more I thought about it, and the more research on my tattoo I did (fonts, sizes, spread, etc.) the more I realized I didn’t need the entire stanza: I just needed “miles to go”.

What the tattoo is for me is a reminder. It is my nine letter stamp that tells me I got through the rough times, and that I can keep going–I have to keep going. And that where ever I get to in life, be it another down-hill slide or something extremely rewarding, not to stay there too long, because I have to move on, and I have to keep moving on until I die.

I am very proud of my tattoo. I loved it before he put the stencil on me.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

- “Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

Similar Posts:

• nothing gold can stay
• Hope is the Thing With Feathers
• Tomarrow
• To sleep, perchance to dream…
• 2 Poems

This is Peregrine’s tattoo of the White Tree of Gondor from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.  It was done at About Time Tattoo in Nashua, NH.

Similar Posts:

• Elvish
• not all those who wander are lost
• In Memory of Star
• not all those who wander are lost
• The Giving Tree

The meaning of life.

This is Penny’s tattoo from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Similar Posts:

• Don’t Panic
• The Beatles
• i want to run to you
• Harry Potter Week, Day 3
• Theme Week: Neil Gaiman, Day 3

Bekka explains her tattoo:

My name’s Bekka and my tattoo is from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Everybody seems to be obsessed with the quote of “Who is John Galt?” when it felt like, at least to me, the whole question wasn’t the point. I chose instead to use something John Galt says towards the end of the book. To condense the whole philosophy to a single phrase to me would be to say, “You can’t get something from nothing.”

Similar Posts:

• Birdcage
• Until I Find You / Clair de Lune
• A Mad Tea-Party
• Do I dare to eat a peach?
• Regina Spektor

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

- Henry David Thoreau (Walden)

Similar Posts:

• 1 Corinthians 13
• Infinite Jest
• through all her veils
• All You Need Is Love
• Jeanette Winterson