Top 40 Tattoo Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.”

— Johnny Depp

Also featured in: Quotes About Stories, Quotes About the Body

2. “A tattoo is graffiti on the temple of the body.”

— Gordon B. Hinckley

3. “An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.”

— James Whistler

4. “My tattoos are reminders to hang in there when things get rough.”

— Demi Lovato

5. “Express yourself through your art – whether it’s your drawings in a sketchpad, tattoos on your skin, the shade of your lipstick, or the clothes that you wear.”

— Kat Von D

6. “Show me a man with a tattoo and I’ll show you a man with an interesting past.”

— Jack London

7. “Don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.”

— Bill Hicks

Also featured in: Worry Quotes

8. “My tattoos are like a scrapbook of my life. Sometimes you don’t feel comfortable in your own skin, so covering it up with pictures helps.”

— Frank Iero

9. “If the body is a temple, then tattoos are its stained glass windows.”

— Sylvia Plath

10. “My tattoos say “Stay strong.” “Stay” on one wrist and “strong” on the other. I’m able to look at them and be thankful for being alive.”

— Demi Lovato

11. “I will not fail, I will not disappoint you, I will not let you down.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

12. “When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad I’m better.”

— Mae West

13. “You don’t have to be naked to be sexy.”

— Nicole Kidman

14. “He said, I’m better off without her, until I showed him my tattoo.”

— Tom Waits

15. “I got this Jesus tattoo on my wrist when I was 18 because I know that it’s always going to be a part of me. When I’m playing, it’s staring right back at me, saying, ‘Remember where you came from.’”

— Katy Perry

16. “It’s all too much and not enough at the same time.”

— Jack Kerouac

17. “God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.”

— Franz Kafka

18. “The other day, I got a henna tattoo that says “Forever.””

— Zach Galifianakis

19. “Usually all my tattoos came at good times. A tattoo is something permanent when you’ve made a self-discovery, or something you’ve come to a conclusion about.”

— Angelina Jolie

20. “I never thought about getting any tattoos removed.”

— Henry Rollins

21. “Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it’s what you want before you commit.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

22. “Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”

— Tony Robbins

Also featured in: Success Quotes, Powerful Quotes

23. “I am a bit of a bad boy. I have tattoos and I mess around. That’s part of my image, so it’s cool.”

— Zayn Malik

24. “My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die.”

— Primo Levi

25. “Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.”

— Salvador Dalí

26. “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

Also featured in: Country Quotes

27. “It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.”

— Charles F. Kettering

28. “I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.”

— Kurt Cobain

29. “Johnny Depp is like a brother to me. We have matching tattoos on our backs – Charles Baudelaire, the flowers of evil, this giant skeleton thing. It’s kind of a secret. People say to us, ‘Why did you get that?’ And we say, ‘No reason.’”

— Marilyn Manson

30. “I think tattoos are horrible. It’s like living in a Pucci dress full-time.”

— Karl Lagerfeld

31. “Painting and tattooing the body is a return to animalism.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

32. “The first tattoo I got was when I was 17, and it’s a cross on my bicep with ‘Only God Can Judge Me’ underneath.”

— Trey Songz

33. “I haven’t had a drink in thirteen years, but occasionally I’m tempted to have one beer. The problem is that if I have that one beer, I wake up in Tijuana four days later with a tattoo and a sore ass.”

— Craig Ferguson

34. “Why not wear a scar of Motherhood? Better than a tattoo or a mark of Honor. Let the world know what you’ve achieved.”

— Richelle Mead

35. “I don’t have any tattoos but I’ve thought about getting Ernie, from Bert and Ernie, on my earlobe. He made a big impression on me as a kid. And I have pretty big earlobes.”

— J Mascis

36. “For someone who likes tattoos, the most precious thing is bare skin.”

— Cher

37. “Becoming a vampire is forever. You don’t get to change your mind about it later. For me, I think that’s one of the big drawbacks with anything that’s permanent. How do you know how you’re going to feel in five years or 10 years? Even with a tattoo.”

— Stephenie Meyer

38. “I’m really glad I did not tattoo on my body ’cause I don’t want them. So, permanence is a very scary thing to me, along with things that don’t change at all.”

— Stephenie Meyer

39. “A very common thing these days is people show up and they ask us in the band to sign with a Sharpie right on their skin and they go get it tattooed the next day. Then they’ll show up at another show and they’ll have their tattoo.”

— Jared Leto

40. “I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make, and I believe it has an important place. Others do, too, and the thousands of people with Morrissey tattoos certainly proves something.”

— Steven Morrissey