Kwon Quotes

I promise it’ll all be worth it. Every splendid, euphoric and magical moment of it will be worth it.

Do you believe in magic?" -R,Annarasumanara

Do you realize that our whole lives, every decision we’ve made, all the roads we’ve chosen—good, bad, big and small—everything has led us to this very moment in time?

Cause that's the thing about boomerangs, right? They come back even if they feel they shouldn't, they come back even if the world tries to stop them, they come back because they ultimately know where they belong...and who they belong to.

No one said finding Paris would be easy; I only said it would be worth it.

I advise you not to mess with me. I know Karate, kung Fu, judo tae kwon do, jujitsu, and 100 other dangerous words.

I'm not telling you to always do whatever you want. I'm saying you should do just as many things you want to do as things you don't want to do. That's what life's about.

You'll tell me what it feels, right? When you find Paris?

What's your one wish tonight?

I’m a black belt in judo, black belt in jujitsu and shotokan, and hold a third dan black belt in tae kwon do.

Well, I started Tae Kwon Do pretty early before moving into Muay Thai—” “What’s that?” “Muay Thai? It’s this Thai kickboxing style where you use your whole body to put force into kicks and strikes.” “Oh, like the way I eat pizza.

Your love will never conquer what this society raised them to be.

Will you take me into a world filled with timeless magic?

I'll give you the moon and the stars, Princess... and maybe a city to go along with it.

Intact families sat in the blue wash of television light, tranquil, like drowned statues.

On our last mission - our "final exam" - we were airlifted to a remote region, and we parachuted directly into a hostile enclave. We had to subdue the enemy using hand-to-hand tactics like tae kwon do and pugil sticks, cut their hair in styles appropriate to their particular face shapes, and give them perms.

I believe that we, in the attempt to live, invented Him. But if I could, I'd ask Him to give you everything.

Mom perched on the edge of our sofa, her forehead etched with a line of concern I'd grown to know well. It was the same one she'd flashed at me when I pointed to the twisty slide, the same one she'd pulled out when I'd taken up Tae Kwon Do in third grade, and the same one that had frozen on her features all through driver's ed last spring. It was her SMother face.

A lumpy mass of American stereotypes was metastasizing inside me. It made me cringe when I heard Mr. Miyagi say "Wax on, wax off, Daniel San." It made me pretend to laugh when I saw Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles. It made me sign up for tae kwon do that year because that was what Asians did. It would be decades before I diagnosed the lump of alienation, dual consciousness, and self-hatred, but it was already growing quickly, bilious and caustic. I only saw myself as the piece that did not fit in the puzzle.

A Black Belt should be... ...a REFLECTION of what IS inside ...NOT the PROOF of it!

Tell me, Choi Yoori...are your lips as soft as they look?

You can call me Boss though, seeing as though you're only the assistant.

With no filter, he said, "I thought it would have been softer. It was kinda salty...

After that experience, I immediately enrolled Julie in tae kwon do class, despite her protests. I wanted to be sure that if she were ever attacked, her instincts would take over, and that her instincts would kick ass.

My Illusionist, will you take me into a world filled with timeless magic?

Phoebe, you’re a capable girl, but I’m afraid being alone isn’t a skill. It’s a disposition.

I ate pain. I swilled tears. If I could take enough in, I'd have no space left to fit my own.

You have to become the 'first of yourself' instead of trying to become the second of anyone.

By the time I quit, I realized I’d rather have no talent than just enough to know how much I lacked.

Masculinity was a glass vase perpetually at the edge of the table.

By the way, Tae Kwon Do does NOT clear up ‘obnoxiousness’.

But once you’ve learned the nasty, street-fighting, no-holds-barred art of Max Kwon Do, you never really forget

Tae kwon do required focus, strength, and endurance, but mostly it required the ability to deal with looking like an ass in public.

I have to pick up Mulder from tae kwon do,” she says. Yes, her son is named after David Duchovny’s character from The X-Files.

People with no experience of God tend to think that leaving the faith would be a liberation, a flight from guilt, rules, but what I couldn't forget was the joy I'd known, loving Him.

I’ve got a black belt in tae kwon do.” When she lowered into a fighting stance, Callen could only wonder. “I took it all through college.” “And I have a mighty and fatally accurate bitch slap,” Jessica added.

all she wants is to be loved totally, without reason or question or sacrifice. Love is her hands above her head. Love is a riding crop, a whip, a knotted red rope—all things that force her to relinquish the control with which she tightly grips the world.

the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.

I’ll be back!

You can't get enough of something you don't need.

She did not watch pornography; she thought about stopping him as soon as the sex became boring to her.

It seems to me that you are less interested in actually being vulnerable with others and more enamored with the symptoms of your own vulnerability, he wrote.

Sasha wants me to take her somewhere--a place she has no vocabulary for--a place neither of us has been.

Do I always have to get something out of everything? Can't I just do it even if I get nothing out of it?

I’ve wondered if I’ve stopped being able to want, but maybe it’s just that what I most wish to have again is not, at this point, available.

apart from restitution, divine forgiveness is illusory, for restitution authenticates our repentance for theft.

Kink proves that our desires, no matter how dark they are deemed, are always worthy of being named.” —BRONTEZ PURNELL, author of 100 Boyfriends

You can’t get enough of a thing you don’t need.

I still can't help but wonder, do our lives truly hold no meaning? Even if you try desperately to find it, to contrive some kind of meaning, is it true that what's not there isn't there? Does life leave only misery behind? Could the fact that we're alive—the fact that we're in this life where joy and terror and peace and danger mingle—couldn't that itself be the meaning of life?

Maybe he was right about you. You are damaged.” Her mouth had dropped open in shock—that he could hit her so low and so hard by quoting Charlie Kwon, her childhood molester. Stevens had turned and left, the door of her little house slamming hard behind him. She looked at the bare finger again, regret pulling down her mouth. He hadn’t deserved how she’d ended it. She was damaged.

She knows that a small, soft animal lives inside her, and that animal wants to be loved completely, flat on its back, kissed and cuddled. She wants that [...] - LARISSA PHAM, AUTHOR OF "Trust

They were like two-thirds of a bar joke: he was an ex-Pentecostal, she was an ex-Catholic, and though she'd been with him for three years, she still refused to let him in the bathroom if she was so much as taking a piss.

This was the thing about being an ex-Christian: like that, your life expectancy went from eternity to seventy-odd years. A death sentence on you and on those you loved. He tried not to think about it; he thought about it all the time.

In a disembodied floating space, S/m offers little pockets of theatricality and connection. So long as they are playing, two people are totally accountable and listening to each other. S/m radically preempts romantic love because it is a practice of it.

Death carves a clear line between the dead and the living,' she said in a solemn tone. 'The dead are over there and the rest of us are over here. When someone dies, no matter how great they were, it's like drawing a permanent line between that person and the rest of humanity. If birth means begging to join the side of the living, then death has the power to kick everyone out. That's why I think death, with its power to sever things forever, is far more objective, more dignified, than birth, which is the starting point of everything.

Worse yet, he blundered from the start, asking her why she felt she needed to be hurt. “Why are people gay?” she shot back, suddenly unshy. “Why does anyone have a foot fetish? One of my earlier memories is of looking up words related to—to this, in the dictionary. It just happens, you know?

I decided to join Svetlana’s tae kwon do class. First we ran around in circles barefoot. I had forgotten about my ankles and feet. The studio had a glass wall overlooking the pool, where a scuba lesson was in session. How did all those people know that they wanted to know how to scuba dive? A boy with a green belt stood with me in a corner and demonstrated the first “form”: a series of dancelike motions that supposedly defended you against some theoretical assailant. I didn’t understand how a dance like that could defend you, unless the attacker also knew the dance, but in that case why would he be using it to attack you?

In Life magazine in 1963, James Baldwin said, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.

Most men would only see bodily fluids when they caught their ejaculate in their hands, or if their life ended at the wrong end of a brawl. but for women, gore was a unit of measurement: monthly cycles, the egg-white slip of arousal, the blood of virginity stolen through force of hand or the force of law, childbirth, fists splitting the skin of the skull, the leak of milk, tears.

The fact that she’s a girl requires, I believe, extra effort. Dada may have, at various times in his life, been a pig, but Dada surely does not want to ever look like a pig again. This can’t possibly be overstated. As the first of two boys, I can’t even imagine what it must be like for a little girl to see her dad leering at another of her sex. This creature will soon grow up to be a young woman and that’s something I consider every day. I figure, I’m going to spoil the shit out of this kid for a while, then pack her off to tae kwon do as soon as she’s four years old. Her first day of second grade and Little Timmy at the desk behind her tries to pull her hair? He’s getting an elbow to the thorax. My little girl may grow up with lots of problems: spoiled; with unrealistic expectations of the world; cultural identification confusion, perhaps (a product of much traveling in her early years); considering the food she’s exposed to, she shall surely have a jaded palate; and an aged and possibly infirm dad by the time she’s sixteen. But she ain’t gonna have any problems with self-esteem. Whatever else, she’s never going to look for validation from some predatory asshole. She can—and surely will—hang out with tons of assholes.

Sometimes I envy the children today with all their tae kwon do, psychotherapy, and language immersion, but at the same time, I appreciate that back then being little meant you really didn’t have to do anything but stay alive and have fun.

They’d have gathered on a rooftop in Noxhurst to watch the explosion.

Tae Kwon Do is a wonderful example of the Japanese concept, Kaizen, which I believe is a foundational practice for success in any and every aspect of life. Kaizen is the idea that small incremental improvements add up over time to yield big results. It’s simple, it’s powerful, and it works.

It had rained his first day out of the gulag, the lines slanting like marionette strings.

Light spilled through closed eyelids, and I was turning into gold.

Faces lit up if I walked into a room, the liking a light I could refract, giving it back. Phoebe, oh, I love that girl, people said, but it's possible they all just loved the reflected selves.

joke. I hadn’t talked much with Liesl, but I would: in time, she’d confide in me, as well. The dad she’d idolized, who left; the men like beads on the string of a furious mother’s life. The anorexic spells. She’d been locked up in a clinic. Obliged to eat, to weigh in. Like a pig for the kill, she said.

I want to live on a planet that can hold us. I believe we can all still help it, us, do so. If nothing else, why not try? Why not hope, and then act as if? This is our one wild, lone home; what other choice do we have? R.O. Kwon

So it's alright, it's okay. There's no such thing as suffering more or suffering less than other people. I understand that you've suffered enough. I fully understand your hardships.

And then I got curious- are we only allowed to be fully sad when there's a special reason or a grand story? Should I adhere to other people's standards and just cut the size of my pain? What should I do with myself suffocating every moment?

Until I can become stronger and embrace my life, I want to run away like now. Someday this escape will end- that's why it's okay for you, for us, to escape. I'm rooting for your escape, as well as mine.

No one sets the standard of my happiness, except for me. Other people might think, "My, just that?" But for me it's not just a speck of dust, but the universe. The same goes with pain. The standard for happiness and pain, I'm the one who decides it.

Even though we're not the brightest stars, we're already stars. It's okay to just be happy. The height of the star isn't determined by others, but by myself. Aren't we too harsh on ourselves? You and I, who are missing out on big, small, and a lot of happiness at the moment.

she turned toward me, still unconscious, wrapping me in limbs and warmth, this bleeding, feverish creature I didn’t know how to stop wanting.

Holly hit her head against the shelving unit, and I grabbed her hair and helped her hit her head two more times. There was no tae kwon do name for that maneuver, but it felt great.

Hadn’t Han Manu, with an iron in one hand and a crutch wedged under his other arm, been more alive than anyone in this world, more alive than the cancer cells that had spread to his lungs? Hadn’t my sister Hae-on—as she sat with her feet on the sofa or car seat, her knees spread with not a thought in her head, with absolutely no clue as to the inappropriateness of her actions—been warm and exquisitely alive, just like a bird about to take flight? Couldn’t each moment we’re living now be the meaning of life?

Hadn’t Han Manu, with an iron in one hand and a crutch wedged under his other arm, been more alive than anyone in this world, more alive than the cancer cells that had spread to his lungs? Hadn’t my sister Hae-on—as she sat with her feet on the sofa or car seat, her knees spread with not a thought in her head, with absolutely no clue as to the inappropriateness of her actions—been warm and exquisitely alive, just like a bird about to take flight? Couldn’t each moment we’re living now be the meaning of life?

At the end of hardship comes happiness.

한대만 때려봐도 되나요 냉전 중 3명의 X와 함께한 위대한 전사 웅

My name's Soonyoung. Call me Soon.

Have I mentioned that I grew up working in my much older brother’s dojo?” “Dojo?” Kerry repeated. “As in karate? Judo?” “Tae kwon do,” Maddy said. She shot a knowing grin Kerry’s way. “Ah,” Kerry said, understanding dawning. “And what color would your belt be, jongyeonghaneun yeosong?” Maddy laughed. “I don’t know if I’m an honorable woman,” she said, surprising Kerry by understanding her very rough Korean. “But my belt, it is black.” Maddy sketched a quick martial arts bow, making both women laugh. They glanced toward the back of the bar at the same time, only to find a grinning Hardy looking their way. “See? He’s the guy who assumes women are always talking about him,” Kerry said. “Well, we are,” Maddy replied. “He can’t know we’re discussing how best to dismantle his manhood if he so much as thinks about laying a finger on me.” She said all this with a serene smile. Hardy lifted his beer in a salute, presumably to Maddy, before downing the rest in a single gulp, as if beer consumption somehow proved his manly man prowess. “Poor Hardy,” Kerry said with a mock sigh. “But then, he never did seem big on wanting to have children. Just ask his ex-wife.” She ducked her chin as both women shared another laugh before continuing with their work. After that, the rest of the night didn’t seem all that arduous. Maddy was happy to return Kerry’s wingman favor, and between the two of them, they managed to distract, deflect, or defend much of the ribbing being thrown Kerry’s way and actually had a much better time doing it than Kerry would have imagined.

I’m going to Master Kwon’s first,” Win said. Master Kwon was their tae kwon do instructor. Both of them were black belts—Myron a second degree, Win a sixth degree, one of the highest ranking Caucasians in the world. Win was the best martial artist Myron had ever seen. He studied several different arts including Brazilian jujitsu, animal kung fu, and Jeet Kun Do. Win the Contradiction. See Win and you think pampered, preppy pantywaist; in reality, he was a devastating fighter. See Win and you think normal, well-adjusted human being; in reality, he was anything but.

(I vividly remember a fellow at my former TaeKwonDo club that must have been 6’9 and despite not being the most technically gifted opponent he simply stuck out a leg and it was automatically at my head height!).

There was no police to call, no one to whom we could turn for help, except the Lord. I understood that we were engaged in a spiritual battle as well as a physical one. I began to pray in heavenly language in the Spirit. Avoiding eye contact, trying to walk forward, Iman flinched when the same boy pinched her, then grabbed her. She flailed at him, but I saw his face harden with lust. Under my breath I rebuked the demonic influence that had its hold on him. The other two men ringed us in, herding us together. They were trying to back us into an alley. Suddenly the same fire I experienced that night after the tae kwon do competition came over me again. Once more I felt supernatural strength. As the men closed in and started to attack us, I attacked them back. My legs swirled in perfectly executed kicks. My hands started fighting back all of them. My feet and hands were flying in all directions. A crowd of onlookers, who would not have lifted a finger to save us, gathered around to watch.

Most forms of martial arts have long histories of eastern religious influence. However, the tae kwon do philosophy was established in the 1950s by the South Korean army for self-defense and combat techniques. Tae kwon do includes “love and benevolence, magnanimity, sympathy and character as well as the five tenets of tae kwon do: courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and an indomitable spirit.” The American missionary who came to my country felt that tae kwon do could be used as a suitable, effective way to model discipleship and promote Christianity. The Lord gives talents and gifts, and even sport can be used to advance His Kingdom.

Even after the civil war ended, my country was still a very lawless place. Walking in the dark to early morning prayer meetings and Friday night gatherings added to the danger for me. The nighttime streets were still empty of people and cars. No one left their homes after sunset because of the risk of being attacked. But I was in love with Jesus, and sometimes that love made me do things I wouldn’t otherwise have done. It made me brave. I was sixteen years old and had been studying tae kwon do for a couple of years. I had passed the tests to achieve first my yellow and then my green belts. Johnny’s schools had multiplied all over our country. Even though all the classes operated as mini-churches, hundreds of Muslims came to learn self-defense. Many stayed to meet and receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, despite the fact they would be persecuted by their families and suffer beatings. Others would receive death threats.

They shouted at us to come with them. I knew what they were going to do; we had heard enough stories of the brutal rapes and murders. Clutching each other’s hands, Munira and I tried to make a run for it, but it was too late. We were both grabbed by the men and dragged toward the waiting car, its engine still running. Again I cried out to God, and as I did, the Holy Spirit fell on me. I was praying in heavenly language as I hit and punched, using karate kicks and tae kwon do moves. In a few minutes I got free and thought Munira was, too. I started running, but as I looked back, I saw my friend, paralyzed by fear and unable to fight or run, being bundled into the car. “Munira,” I shouted, running back. I couldn’t leave her. With a supernatural strength that was not mine, I grabbed Munira and tried to pull her from their clutches. It was a real fight, but eventually we were both free, although bruised and bleeding. We ran as fast as we could out of the area. Later I realized that even though the men had guns, they hadn’t shot at us. I knew that this was God. He had again protected us.

not only fought for my purity but for my life! I drove the heel of my hand up into his chin. Seizing his wrist, I wrenched his grip off me, then spun him around. I saw a startled look in his eyes. Stumbling, his feet slipped on the wet pavement as I shoved him away. In no time at all I freed myself from the man and then ran as fast as I could. I didn’t stop until I reached home. My tae kwon do outfit and New Testament were lost, but I was safe. I steadied myself before entering my home. I shook from the shock of the encounter but was afraid to tell my parents about my experience, fearing they would not let me go out at night anymore. I wanted to be able to come and go so I could get to our Friday night prayer session in a few hours. Every Friday the Muslims went to the mosque to pray, and that is why our church put on the weekly Friday nights of prayer—to intercede for our brothers and sisters who did not know Jesus. I was still planning to go with my sisters. We would wait until everyone in the apartment was asleep before sneaking out and heading there.

The Lord says in Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit” (NIV). I had experienced that same power, and it had saved my friend and me from the clutches of evil men. Despite the very real danger on the streets, I never stopped going to church or tae kwon do. Faith never gives up! I would tell myself. My hunger for truth and fellowship was bigger than my fear.

Pike stood again, and once more faced the crowd. “I qualified as a scout/sniper and served in Force Recon, mostly on long-range reconnaissance teams, hunter/killer teams, and priority target missions. I’m black belt qualified in tae kwon do, kung fu, wing chun, judo, and ubawazi. I like to run and work out. I like to read.

Kwon Tae-jin, a specialist on North Korean agriculture at the Korea Rural Economic Institute, which is funded by the South Korean government, told me in Seoul. In the far north, where food supplies are historically lean and farmers are regarded as politically hostile, the military takes a quarter of total grain production, Kwon

In contrast to the Western reliance on drugs and verbal therapies, other traditions from around the world rely on mindfulness, movement, rhythms, and action. Yoga in India, tai chi and qigong in China, and rhythmical drumming throughout Africa are just a few examples. The cultures of Japan and the Korean peninsula have spawned martial arts, which focus on the cultivation of purposeful movement and being centered in the present, abilities that are damaged in traumatized individuals. Aikido, judo, tae kwon do, kendo, and jujitsu, as well as capoeira from Brazil, are examples. These techniques all involve physical movement, breathing, and meditation.

Kevin nodded. “Absolutely!” “So, I guess you’re the new King of Karate,” Jackson said.  Kevin smiled and pointed to Grand Master Kwon who was walking in front of them, “Nah, he’s the King of Karate, we are just princes.”  Kevin and Jackson grinned at each other and laughed.  Then Kevin went to celebrate

. . . how artful bodies will be, retelling old stories.

I'd plotted, as a child, to give my life to the Lord. In college, I'd lost this faith. Isolated, grief-wild, I'd picked through the ruins He'd left behind. If I could still love this orphan world, deprived of His salvific light, which parts of it might even I, broken as I came, find worth prizing?

In the afterlife I won't find, I'll sit with all the people I've lost, and we'll laugh at the prodigals we used to be. Once, long ago, we split apart. No such thing will happen again.

I couldn’t forget you even if I wanted to.

I imagine what happened inside one police interrogation room so many years ago. He races across the intersection brimming with joy and terror, almost soaring into the radiant June dusk.

Charlotte McKenzie was present. No longer saddled with her fake role as a diplo, she was wearing black slacks, a dark blouse and a supple leather jacket. She was still grandmotherly—but she was a grandmother who might practice tae kwon do and enjoy white-water rafting, if not big-game hunting.

If you don't meet their standards, you become a loser.