Tattoorism 101: Emmie's Vonnegut Tattoo

This is the first installment of what I call Tattoorism 101.

Hello Bill, I wanted to start off by saying I love your blog. I really enjoy reading all the stories behind all the interesting tattoos you post. I'm sure you're swamped with submissions, but I wanted to add mine to your collection.

The quote "Everything is beautiful and nothing hurt" is from Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five". It's my first tattoo, and it was done by Black Diamond Tattoo Studio in Abington, MA. I knew I wanted to get one for a while, and I knew I wanted it to be a quote of some sort, but nothing really struck me until I saw this. In the book, the quote is actually on a tombstone.
I think it struck me to think that if you can go through your entire life and put that on your tombstone, you must have lived a pretty good one. I know that it isn't entirely realistic, but I think of the quote as an ideal, and something to live up to. I wound up choosing the heart design just because I liked it and I didn't fancy putting a tombstone on my back.

Well, I hope that you are able to post this on your blog. Thanks for running such an awesome site!

Cheers, Emmie

This is actually a pretty popular tattoo quote and has appeared, in a different form, on Tattoosday here. I do like how Emmie shaped it into a heart. I think Kurt Vonnegut would have liked that too.

Thanks to Emmie for sharing this piece with us, and for all of you who have sent me photos previously. I will get to your submissions in the days and weeks to come.