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, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol.II, Ch

There is no “underground” community, no dark den of drunken sailors initiating themselves into manhood via cheap, ill-conceived exercises in bodily perforation; it’s just a group of people who delight in using their bodies as billboards. – Joanne McCubrey, “Walking Art: Tattoos,” Mountain Democrat Weekend magazine, 199

For westerners, the tattoo has always been a metaphor of difference. – Margo DeMello, Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Co

Tattoo. What a loaded word it is, rife with associations to goons, goofs, bikers, tribal warriors, carnival artists, drunken sailors and floozies. – Jon Anderson, “Epidermal Dalis,” Chicago Tribune, 6 October 1994