Vicki > Vicki's Quotes

“As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their "right" place.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

“Judging is preventing us from understanding a new truth. Free yourself from the rules of old judgments and create the space for new understanding.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“There's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater,you realize that you've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.”
― Dave Barry

“By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“Believe it or not, some of us have piercings and tattoos and dye our hair because we think it looks pretty, not for any deep sociological reason. This isn't an act of protest against cultural or social repression. It's not a grand, deliberately defiant gesture against capitalists or feminists or any other social group. It's not even the fashion equivalent to sticking two fingers up at the world. The boring truth of it, Gabriel, is that I don't dress like this to hurt my parents or draw attention to myself or make a statement. I just do it because I think it looks nice. Disappointed?”
― Alex Bell, The Ninth Circle

“Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“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.”
― Truman Capote, Conversations with Capote

“If people are honest with themselves when they choose a tattoo, the art will represent them better than anything that will ever come out of their mouth. The things that are most important to me are represented in the art that covers my body. My God, my family, my friends, my job, my social and historical beliefs and the aggressive or even violent nature with which I will protect all of them.....basically in that order of importance. Is it scarey or repulsive to some people? Yes. Does it change who I am? No. If anything it works as an outward conscience that will forever remind me of who I am and what is important during times of trial or long after my mind starts to fade due to old age if I'm blessed with a long life.Remove”
― Troy Holloway

“heavily tattooed women can be said to control and subvert the ever-present 'male gaze' by forcing men (and women) to look at their bodies in a manner that exerts control.”
― Margo DeMello

“You purchase pain with all that joy can give and die of nothing but a rage to live.”
― Alexander Pope, Moral Essays

“Tattooing, when understood in its entirety, must be seen as a religious act. The human being brings forth images from the center of the self and communicates them to the world. Fantasy is embodied in reality and the person is made whole.”
― Spider Webb

“I wonder, only in passing, whether the indelible ornamentation that man inscribes upon his own epidermis does not respond to a nostalgia for the universal internally generated coloring of corrollas, furs, shells, carapaces and wings. For man it has been necessary to create both works and tools outside of himself. But it may be that he retains an obscure nostalgia to create them on his own body, to make them a part of it rather than projecting them outwards onto an independent surface, where he is free to retouch them as he sees fit, which is precisely what painting and art are.”
― Roger Caillois, The Dedalus Book of Surrealism: The Identity of Things

“She wanted something she didn't have words for- peace, numbness, something.”
― Melissa Marr, Ink Exchange