"Almost always gotten on impulse, tattoos are vividly, chillingly permanent. The shopworn ‘Act in..."

“Almost always gotten on impulse, tattoos are vividly, chillingly permanent. The shopworn ‘Act in Haste, Repent in Leisure’ would seem to have been almost custom-designed for the case of tattoos. (…) Because the whole thing about tattoos is that they’re permanent, of course, irrevocable once gotten - which of course the irrevocability of a tattoo is what jacks up the adrenaline of the intoxicated decision to sit down in the chair and actually get it (the tattoo) - but the chilling thing about the intoxication is that it seems to make you consider only the adrenaline of the moment itself, not (in any depth) the irrevocability that produces the adrenaline. It’s like the intoxication keeps your tattoo-type-class person from being able to project his imagination past the adrenaline of the impulse and even consider the permanent consequences that are producing the buzz of the excitement.”



- Infinite Jest (Other people would have just said ‘YOLO’, but David Foster Wallace’s a bit more talkative.)

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