Mas Arai Quotes

Meetings were for wasting time, created by and for high-tone people to justify their existence. ~ Naomi Hirahara

All good farmers become connoisseurs of dirt and dust. ~ David Mas Masumoto

Grandma says there's more of him."
"What?"
"Persons like him, in the world."
"Ah," says Ma.
"Is it true?"
"Yeah. But the tricky thing is, there's far more people in the middle."
"Where?"
Ma's staring out the window but I don't know at what. "Somewhere between good and bad," she says. "Bits of both stuck together. ~ Emma Donoghue

The most important are the eyes. In a fight if you look down out of fear you'll certainly be defeated ~ Mas Oyama

The shack took on a different light, as though more windows had opened up. She stood back and stared at them--a miracle to have some of Ma's paintings on the walls. ~ Delia Owens

Is this how you will die? Is this what you were meant for? To simply be bled out like a pig?
A spark of rage flickers, an antidote to despair.
Will you not even try to survive? Did the scientists make you too stupid even to consider fighting for your own life?
Emiko closes her eyes and prays to Mizuko Jizo Bodhisattva, and then the bakeneko cheshire spirit for good measure. She takes a breath, and then with all her strength she slams her hand against the knife. The blade slices past her neck, a searing line.
"Arai wa?!" the man shouts.
Emiko shoves hard against him and ducks under his flailing knife. Behind her, she hears a grunt and thud as she bolts for the street. She doesn't look back. She plunges into the street, not caring that she shows herself as a windup, not caring that in running she will burn up and die. She runs, determined only to escape the demon behind her. She will burn, but she will not die passive like some pig led to slaughter. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

There are twenty-five positions in the book. We just need to try out about five of them to give a fair review."
"Five?" Ben tried to mas his disappointment. As turned on as he was he could have tried out five tonight alone.
"Maybe more if we have time. I know you're busy this week. I don't want to impose on your cock."
"Impose on it. Please."
"Should we get started?"
"I will literally, actually, in reality die if we don't. ~ Tiffany Reisz

X is for X-mas Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket, then all your Christmases can come at once! ~ Lucas Remmerswaal

I got up on time this morning, boarded the train, changed to the subway, and worked like an aggressive career woman in one of the biggest corporations around. At night I transformed into a prostitute sought out by men. Suddenly I remembered the argument I had had earlier with Arai and stopped short. I'm a company employee day and night. Or is it that I'm a prostitute night and day? Which is it? Which one is me? ~ Natsuo Kirino

Hay una estrella mas abierta
que la palabra 'amapola'?
Is there a star more wide open
than the word 'poppy? ~ Pablo Neruda

The heart of our karate is real fighting.There can be no proof without real fighting. Without proof there is no trust. Without trust there is no respect. This is a definition in the world of martial arts. ~ Mas Oyama

Go to the theater, to museums, and to concerts as often as possible; it gives you a healthy glow. ~ Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline De Maigret, Sophie Mas

EMMETT (on being a 'mama's boy'): Poppy teases me for being a mama's boy. She ain't wrong, but my ma's worth acting stupid over. She raised me in a rough world without losing her ability to be tender. ~ Bijou Hunter

One becomes a beginner after 1000 days of training. One becomes a master after 10,000 days of practice. ~ Mas Oyama

Studying the martial Way is like climbing a cliff: keep going forward without rest. Resting is not permissible because it causes recessions to old adages of achievement. Persevering day in, day out improves techniques, but resting one day causes lapses. This must be prevented. ~ Mas Oyama

Did you know that Christmas means "Christ" (Jesus) and "mas" (a celebration)? The story about Jesus is found in the name of that special day when we celebrate His birth! ~ Soraya Diase Coffelt

When you lose the title, that doesn't mean you lose the contract to what you had. Just like when you win the title, it doesn't mean you win brains, PhDs and MAs. ~ Don King

Mientras mas honda la herida,
Es mi canto mas hermoso.
While more deeper is the wound
The more beautiful the art. ~ Jose Marti

As far as possible, I want nothing more than to don my training gi and teach Karate. ~ Mas Oyama

Do you realize what a beacon you've become?"

"A - I beg your pardon?"

"A beacon of hope," says the woman, smiling. "As soon as we announced we'd be doing this interview, our viewers started calling in, e-mails, text messages, telling us you're an angel, a talisman of goodness . . ."

Ma makes a face. "All I did was I survived, and I did a pretty good job of raising Jack. A good enough job."

"You're very modest."

"No, what I am is irritated, actually."

The puffy-hair woman blinks twice.

"All this reverential - I'm not a saint." Ma's voice is getting loud again. "I wish people would stop treating us like we're the only ones who ever lived through something terrible. I've been finding stuff on the Internet you wouldn't believe."

"Other cases like yours?"

"Yeah, but not just - I mean, of course when I woke up in that shed, I thought nobody'd ever had it as bad as me. But the thing is, slavery's not a new invention. And solitary confinement - did you know, in America we've got more than twenty-five thousand prisoners in isolation cells? Some of them for more than twenty years." Her hand is pointing at the puffy-hair woman. "As for kids - there's places where babies lie in orphanages five to a cot with pacifiers taped into their mouths, kids getting raped by Daddy every night, kids in prisons, whatever, making carpets till they go blind - ~ Emma Donoghue

Apples

Ma's apple blossoms
have turned to hard green balls.

To eat them now,
so tart,
would turn my mouth inside out,
would make my stomach groan.

But in just a couple months,
after the baby is born,
those apples will be ready
and we'll make pies
and sauce
and pudding
and dumplings
and cake
and cobbler
and have just plain apples to take to school
and slice with my pocket knife
and eat one juicy piece at a time
until my mouth is clean
and fresh
and my breath is nothing but apple.

June 1934 ~ Karen Hesse

One living daily in the Way carries their head low and their eyes high; reserved in speech and possessing a kind heart, they steadfastly continue in their training efforts. ~ Mas Oyama

Ma and God

God gave us fingers--Ma says, "Use your fork."
God gave us voices--Ma says, "Don't scream."
Ma says eat broccoli, cereal and carrots.
But God gave us tasteys for maple ice cream.

God gave us fingers--Ma says, "Use your hanky."
God gave us puddles--Ma says, "Don't splash."
Ma says, "Be quiet, your father is sleeping."
But God gave us garbage can covers to crash.

God gave us fingers--Ma says, "Put your gloves on."
God gave us raindrops--Ma says, "Don't get wet."
Ma says be careful, and don't get too near to
Thoses strange lovely dogs that God gave us to pet.

God gave us fingers--Ma says, "Go wash 'em."
But God gave us coal bins and nice dirty bodies.
And I ain't too smart, but there's one thing for certain--
Either Ma's wrong or else God is. ~ Shel Silverstein

The path of Martial Arts begins and ends with courtesy. So be genuinely polite on every occasion. ~ Mas Oyama

We have so little in common, but we were both avid readers growing up. I read almost nonstop when I was little, and it saved me in school. I hated classes, hated teachers. They always wanted me to do things I didn't want to do. But because I was a reader, they knew I wasn't stupid, just different. They cut me slack. It got me through.
Reading couldn't help me make friends, though. I never got the hang of it. I would talk to kids, and over the years a handful of them even seemed to like me enough to ask to come over, but after that first visit to the house they never lasted. Ma told me what I did wrong but I could never manage to do it right. 'Act interested in what they say,' she said, but they never said anything interesting. 'Don't talk too much,' she said, but it never seemed like too much to me. So it wasn't like people threw tomatoes at me, or dipped my pigtails in inkwells, or stood up to move their desks away from mine, but I never really managed to make friends that I could keep.
And I got used to it. I got used to a lot of things. Writing extra papers to make up for falling short in class participation. Volunteering to do the planning and the typing up whenever we had group work assigned, because I knew I could never really work right with a group. And the coping always worked. Up until three years into college, where despite Ma's repeated demands to try harder, I stalled. Every semester since, I was always still trying to finish that last Oral Communicatio ~ Jael McHenry

Subjecting yourself to vigourous training is more for the sake of forging a resolute spirit that can vanquish the self than it is for developing a strong body. ~ Mas Oyama

Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you."
I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me. ~ Emma Donoghue

Karate is not a game. It is not a sport. It is not even a system of self-defense. Karate is half physical exercise and half spiritual. The karateist who has given the necessary years of exercise and meditation is a tranquil person. He is unafraid. He can even be calm in a burning building. ~ Mas Oyama

Come ye trials and challanges; come life's big waves, for I am ready? ~ Mas Oyama

My dear!" I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the vigorous emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. "Your duty as a child - " "Oh! Don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's Ma's duty as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then let the public and Africa show duty as a child; it's much more their affair than mine. You ~ Charles Dickens

Ma's still spending too much money on clothes. I'm trying to teach her that material possessions don't equal happiness. It's a work in progress. ~ L. H. Cosway

What is the spirit of Christmas, you ask? Let me give you the answer in a true story...
On a cold day in December, feeling especially warm in my heart for no other reason than it was the holiday season, I walked through the store sporting a big grin on my face. Though most people were far too busy going about their business to notice me, one elderly gentleman in a wheelchair brought his eyes up to meet mine as we neared each other traveling opposite directions. He slowed in passing just long enough to speak to me.
"Now that's a Christmas smile if I ever saw one," he said.
My lips stretched to their limit in response, and I thanked him for the compliment. Then we went our separate ways. But, as I thought about the man and how sweetly he'd touched me, I realized something simply wonderful! In that brief, passing interaction we'd exchanged heartfelt gifts!
And that, my friend, is the spirit of Christ~mas. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

1-2 out of every 100 students reach Black Belt and of those only 1 out of every 1,000 achieves his 2nd Dan ~ Mas Oyama

The most significant life is the one lived on the basis of a personal sense of justice and the desire to see justice realized everywhere. ~ Mas Oyama

Sufre mas el que espera siempre
que aquel que nunca espero a nadie?
Does he who is always waiting suffer more than he who's never waited for anyone? ~ Pablo Neruda

THE INSTRUCTION OF PTAHHOTEP
Epilogue
Part II

The fool who does not hear,
He can do nothing at all;
He sees knowledge in ignorance,
Usefulness in harmfulness.
He does all that one detests
And is blamed for it each day;
He lives on that by which one dies.
His food is distortion of speech.
His sort is known to the officials,
Who say: "A living death each day."
One passes over his doings,
Because of his many daily troubles.

A son who hears is a follower of Horus,
It goes well with him when he has heard.
When he is old has reached veneration.
He will speak likewise to his children,
Renewing the teaching of his father.
Every man teaches as he acts,
He will speak to the children,
So that they will speak to their children:
Set an example, don't give offense,
If justice stands firm your children will live.

As to the first who gets into trouble,
When they see (it) people will say:
"That is just like him."
And will say to what they hear:
"That's just like him too."

To see everyone is to satisfy the many,
Riches are useless without them.
Don't take a word and then bring it back,
Don't put one thing in place of another.
Beware of loosening the cords in you,
Lest a wise man say:
"Listen, if you want to endure in the mouth of the hearers.
Speak after you have mas ~ Miriam Lichtheim