Black script lettering on an arm reads 'Our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean', in a lettering style.

Wave quote lettering on an arm

Lettering · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a quotation tattooed on the skin, reading 'Our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean' over several lines, with 'world', 'permanent' and 'ocean' in larger flowing script and the smaller words in spaced capitals. The linework is solid black with no shading, and the final line sweeps into a wave-like underline. The shallow focus leaves a blurred bookshelf in the background.

Lettering Upper arm Quote Text Script Wave Ocean

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the pan, and stop looking at the door, it won't open any quicker for staring. Right. Forty years back this galley had a sign-writer aboard, a little Glaswegian called Tam Rennie, who lettered everything from the lifebelts to the names on the lockers. He carried a pot of black ink and a brush like a cat's tail, and the skipper paid him in tinned peaches to paint a line above the stove. Lift the bread bin and you'll still see it, if the grease hasn't got to it. Our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean.

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He did the big words first, the ones that swooped, world and permanent, with the ship standing on her tail somewhere off Finisterre. I asked him why he'd waste good paint on a thing the sea would take in the end. He just laughed and said the sea takes everything except the telling of it. Then he went on writing, tongue poking out the side of his mouth, while the plates slid across the table and I held the soup down with my forearm.

He left us at Cork with a cough and a bag of peaches, and nobody ever scrubbed the wall. I used to think the words were his joke on himself, a man who thought his lettering would last longer than the boat. Then the boat went to the breakers, and the wall came off in one piece, and I bought it off the scrap man for a bottle of rum. It's still in the bin cupboard at home, the paint gone soft and brown at the edges.

So there's your lesson, if you want one. Now go and wash those spuds, and keep your inky hands away from the bread. That stuff doesn't come off as easy as you'd think.