Over the centuries, writers have made their mark. Politically, culturally, socially. Their words are read, argued over, adapted to new media, and a select few are fortunate enough to find their words come into common parlance, even if the source is not remembered.
“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang, but a whimper.”
“For of all sad words of tongue or pen / The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’”
Bonus points if you can identify these poets without looking them up.
The written word makes its mark on the page, and increasingly, indelibly, elsewhere. There is something of a fashion for literary tattoos, so much so there are even dedicated websites with several fine examples, such as Contrariwise.
From the small and discreet:

To the large, complex and frankly painful:

I already have one tattoo myself:

and have been considering another, a symbol from one of my own stories.
However, this site, the idea behind these tattoos intrigues me. I am thinking of getting one to surround my existing tattoo.
Not a literary quote, but one about a literary giant, a man I (sometimes uncomfortably) identify with increasingly.
His name has been lent to descriptions of characters like those I write about, Byronic antiheroes. The quote is by Lady Caroline Lamb to describe Lord Byron:
Mad, bad and dangerous to know
Paul would like to wish his father-in-law a very happy 60th birthday!
Posted in Paul Anderson