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.

Kurt Vonnegut Remembered. So it goes.

At the Seventh Avenue Street Fair in Park Slope on Sunday, there was plenty of ink. Amazing ink too. But I only stopped one person, Samantha.

Samantha had this simple quote from the late Kurt Vonnegut on her back. This simple refrain (used 106 times in Slaughterhouse-Five, according to Wikipedia), came to be synonymous with the Vonnegut philosophy.

Samantha had this inked on her birthday at Hypnotic Designs in Sunset Park by Dru. Her boyfriend Igor also had a Vonnegut quote inked, but on his left leg:


or, from a different view:


This quote is from God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian...

My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.

Thanks to Samantha and Igor for sharing their Vonnegutian ink here on Tattoosday!