Scar-y
May 22, 2022 11:48 AM Subscribe
Looking for quotes about how scars, nicks, dents, scratches are a good thing, sign of experience...
from anywhere: classic lit, poetry, pop music, cereal boxes ...
from anywhere: classic lit, poetry, pop music, cereal boxes ...
"But the fact of the matter is bones heal, chicks dig scars and the United States of America has the best doctors-to-dare-devils ratio in the world." -- Lance Murdock in "Bart the Daredevil" Season 2, Episode 21 of The Simpsons
Edit: haha. Jinx.
posted by bondcliff at 12:17 PM on May 22, 2022
Edit: haha. Jinx.
posted by bondcliff at 12:17 PM on May 22, 2022
Best answer: Leonard Cohen's line "there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in" (from "Anthem") is a classic.
posted by babelfish at 12:19 PM on May 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by babelfish at 12:19 PM on May 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
Best answer: Sycamore (by Wendell Barry)
In the place that is my own place, whose earth I am
shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,
a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in that has not harmed it.
There is a hollow in it that is its death, though its living
brims whitely at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
Over all its scars has come the seamless white of the bark.
It bears the gnarls of its history healed over.
It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate.
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
In all the country there is no other like it.
I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
I see that it stands in its place, and feeds upon it,
and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.
posted by selfmedicating at 12:35 PM on May 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
In the place that is my own place, whose earth I am
shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,
a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in that has not harmed it.
There is a hollow in it that is its death, though its living
brims whitely at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
Over all its scars has come the seamless white of the bark.
It bears the gnarls of its history healed over.
It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate.
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
In all the country there is no other like it.
I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
I see that it stands in its place, and feeds upon it,
and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.
posted by selfmedicating at 12:35 PM on May 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
Not really a quote, but scars (and I have plenty) make me think of the Japanese art of kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with gold. Rather than try to hide the flaws, the gold draws attention to the repair, and makes the mended piece a unique work of art.
posted by xedrik at 12:35 PM on May 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by xedrik at 12:35 PM on May 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
I was actually looking for a different Wendell Barry quote when I found the poem above.
The quote I think I was looking for was "An art that heals and protects its subject is a geography of scars."
Also, there's a poem that has the line "the seed will sprout in the scar" which you can find in this article (scroll down).
Dude really liked scars.
posted by selfmedicating at 12:43 PM on May 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
The quote I think I was looking for was "An art that heals and protects its subject is a geography of scars."
Also, there's a poem that has the line "the seed will sprout in the scar" which you can find in this article (scroll down).
Dude really liked scars.
posted by selfmedicating at 12:43 PM on May 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
It's part of a longer passage that has a different (I'd say unrelated) meaning, but Hemingway wrote in A Farewell to Arms, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
posted by telegraph at 12:48 PM on May 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by telegraph at 12:48 PM on May 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is about having kids BUT I use it for anyone who is engaged in loving others.
"Love is hard on the heart. Your heart can’t remain perfect and proud, unscarred and perky. It will be worn and joyous, wise and beat up, and full of sorrow and amazement."
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 1:05 PM on May 22, 2022
"Love is hard on the heart. Your heart can’t remain perfect and proud, unscarred and perky. It will be worn and joyous, wise and beat up, and full of sorrow and amazement."
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 1:05 PM on May 22, 2022
Brian Eno // “Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”
posted by matildaben at 1:37 PM on May 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by matildaben at 1:37 PM on May 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
Made me think about (ugh) Mater from Cars.
Your dents show the times you have lived through. You survived them, and they remind you of the people you were with when you got them, and who you were when you got them…
posted by Windopaene at 1:40 PM on May 22, 2022
Your dents show the times you have lived through. You survived them, and they remind you of the people you were with when you got them, and who you were when you got them…
posted by Windopaene at 1:40 PM on May 22, 2022
That Lance Murdock quote (and a lot of things about Lance Murdock) was inspired by Evel Kneivel, who (allegedly) said 'bones heal, pain is temporary, and chicks dig scars.'
posted by box at 1:46 PM on May 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by box at 1:46 PM on May 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!
Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
posted by jennstra at 1:53 PM on May 22, 2022
Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
posted by jennstra at 1:53 PM on May 22, 2022
Scars remind us where we've been. They don't have to dictate where we're going.
When I first saw this, I thought it was a famous quote, but it appears to have been original to Criminal Minds.
Whatever you think about the show, it's a decent line.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 2:13 PM on May 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
When I first saw this, I thought it was a famous quote, but it appears to have been original to Criminal Minds.
Whatever you think about the show, it's a decent line.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 2:13 PM on May 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
“On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”
Little Bee, by Chris Cleve
posted by holborne at 3:17 PM on May 22, 2022
Little Bee, by Chris Cleve
posted by holborne at 3:17 PM on May 22, 2022
Best answer: Instead of providing the full quote, I'll summarize.
In the book Women Who Run With The Wolves, the author tells a story of how once she had the idea to get a big coat and then embellish it with embroidery, fabric paint, or something, with each decoration symbolizing some bad thing that had happened to her. Initially she planned to finish it, then come up with some ritual of maybe putting it on, taking a good look at herself in it, and then burning it in some kind of symbolic "I am letting this go" gesture.
But the more she worked on it....the more her feelings about it changed. Every time she looked at all the shit that was on this coat - and there were getting to be a lot of things - she would then look at herself, and at how she was more or less on an even keel mentally, and had friends and a job and a spouse, and her attitude towards the coat was more that it was a reminder that "holy crap, I lived through ALL OF THAT and I'm still okay. Damn, I'm a badass." And so when she finished, she instead hung it on her coatrack where she could see it every day as a reminder that "I am a badass who lived through all that shit".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:45 PM on May 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
In the book Women Who Run With The Wolves, the author tells a story of how once she had the idea to get a big coat and then embellish it with embroidery, fabric paint, or something, with each decoration symbolizing some bad thing that had happened to her. Initially she planned to finish it, then come up with some ritual of maybe putting it on, taking a good look at herself in it, and then burning it in some kind of symbolic "I am letting this go" gesture.
But the more she worked on it....the more her feelings about it changed. Every time she looked at all the shit that was on this coat - and there were getting to be a lot of things - she would then look at herself, and at how she was more or less on an even keel mentally, and had friends and a job and a spouse, and her attitude towards the coat was more that it was a reminder that "holy crap, I lived through ALL OF THAT and I'm still okay. Damn, I'm a badass." And so when she finished, she instead hung it on her coatrack where she could see it every day as a reminder that "I am a badass who lived through all that shit".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:45 PM on May 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
This verse from Daredevil by Fiona Apple has always struck me and has the spirit of past experience giving you strength:
Say I'm an airplane
And the gashes I got from my heartbreak
Make the slots and the flaps upon my wing
And I use them to give me lift
Hip hip for the lift
Hip hip for the drag
I want them all in my bag
Oh give me anything and I'll turn it into a gift
Then also this from Anything We Want:
My scars were reflecting the mist in your headlights
I look like a neon zebra shaking rain off her stripes
And the rivulets had you riveted to the places that
I wanted you to kiss me when we find some time alone
posted by lookoutbelow at 4:29 PM on May 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Say I'm an airplane
And the gashes I got from my heartbreak
Make the slots and the flaps upon my wing
And I use them to give me lift
Hip hip for the lift
Hip hip for the drag
I want them all in my bag
Oh give me anything and I'll turn it into a gift
Then also this from Anything We Want:
My scars were reflecting the mist in your headlights
I look like a neon zebra shaking rain off her stripes
And the rivulets had you riveted to the places that
I wanted you to kiss me when we find some time alone
posted by lookoutbelow at 4:29 PM on May 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Ha, if you're serious about the cereal boxes type of source, I literally just today got a Spotify ad from G-Star Raw denim talking about how the wrinkles and rips in your jeans reflect your life experience and you should "wear your denim to the end." They've got an artistic little 1-minute video ad on the theme on their webpage right now.
posted by sigmagalator at 11:10 PM on May 22, 2022
posted by sigmagalator at 11:10 PM on May 22, 2022
Best answer: For What Binds Us
By Jane Hirshfield
There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down—
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.
And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,
as all flesh,
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest—
And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.
posted by foxfirefey at 11:12 PM on May 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
By Jane Hirshfield
There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down—
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.
And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,
as all flesh,
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest—
And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.
posted by foxfirefey at 11:12 PM on May 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Some songs:
Moana - I am Moana: The journey may leave a scar. But scars can heal and reveal just where you are.
Fugazi - Reclamation: We will carry our noble scars. Reclamation.
Goo Goo Dolls - Name: Scars are souvenirs you never lose The past is never far
Ben Lee - Career Choice: But instead I built fret-callous fingertip scars On my ten year old hands meant for toy ships and cars
Merrol Ray - Dancing Hard: Those crashes and burns they left their scars. But it really don't matter when you're dancing hard.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:47 AM on May 23, 2022
Moana - I am Moana: The journey may leave a scar. But scars can heal and reveal just where you are.
Fugazi - Reclamation: We will carry our noble scars. Reclamation.
Goo Goo Dolls - Name: Scars are souvenirs you never lose The past is never far
Ben Lee - Career Choice: But instead I built fret-callous fingertip scars On my ten year old hands meant for toy ships and cars
Merrol Ray - Dancing Hard: Those crashes and burns they left their scars. But it really don't matter when you're dancing hard.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:47 AM on May 23, 2022
The 2000 movie The Replacements (with a much stronger cast than it needs) has Keanu Reeves’ character delivering a variant of the line cited several times above: “Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. But glory... glory lasts forever.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:18 AM on May 24, 2022
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:18 AM on May 24, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 12:17 PM on May 22, 2022 [6 favorites]