“When you’re young, it’s hard to feel as if you’re doing anything more than seeking passage within your body, and we find all kinds of ways of taking control, of trying to make the body stay. It took me a long time to learn that good tattooing, like all good art, is less about a yearning for permanen…”— Rachel Jepsen, thecut.com
“It would be — and still is — the little home we carry with us. Marriage is not an attempt at staying the present. At least, good marriages aren’t. And neither are good tattoos.”— Rachel Jepsen, thecut.com
“Will it not be wise to allow the friendship between nations to rest upon deep and permanent things? Irritations of the cuticle must not be confounded with heart failure.”— Benjamin Harrison, amazon.com
“Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.”— Henri Matisse, en.wikiquote.org
“Nothing is built on stone; All is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.”— Jorge Luis Borges, amazon.com
“The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.”— Alan Watts, books.google.com
“The paint doesn’t move the way the light reflects, so what’s there to be faithful to? I am faithful to you, darling. I say it to the paint.”— Richard Siken, narrativemagazine.com
“Every time it rains it stops raining. Every time you hurt, you heal. After darkness, there is always light and you get reminded of this every morning but you still choose to believe that the night will last forever. Nothing lasts forever. Not the good or the bad.”— Iain Thomas, amazon.ca
“I love to kiss the pictures in your skin. They’ll last until you’re seared to ashes; whatever persists or turns to pain between us, they will still be there. Such permanence is terrifying.”— Kim Addonizio, amazon.com