You know the feeling — you read a phrase in a favorite book, and its as if it has been inked permanently on your mind. Of course, some people choose to literally ink odes to their favorite books on their bodies, whether inspired by children’s books or by some of the incredible turns of phrase below, which we’ve chosen for their resonance as well as their beauty. And as you probably know, the web overfloweth with literary tattoos, particularly literary quote tattoos — and certain books tend to spark more tattoos than others — so we’ve simply chosen our favorites here. If we’ve missed yours, add it to our collection in the comments.
From The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. [via]
(It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.) From Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. [via]
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat: “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the cat, “Or you wouldn’t have come here.”
From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. [via]
From Samuel Beckett’s Worstward Ho. [via]
From “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou. [via]
The last line of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. [via]
The last line of The Great Gatsby. [via]
From The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus. [via]
From Lois Lowry’s The Giver. [via]
Dumbledore said it best. From Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling. [via]
From The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger [via]
Oscar Wilde. [via]
“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” The last line in “Ulysses” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. [via]
From Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. [via]
From Frank Herbert’s Dune. [via]
“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” is fake Latin for “don’t let the bastards grind you down,” from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. [via]
From Romeo and Juliet (horizontal) and “Byzantium” by Ray Bradbury (vertical). [via]
From Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. [via]
From Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. [via]
Kurt Vonnegut‘s most famous phrase. [via]