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

The universality of tattooing is a curious subject for speculation. – James Cook, 1779

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

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, Sr., The Poet at the Breakfast Table, 1872