“The historic beauty of BJJ rests not with its ability to allow a smaller man to maim a larger man, but with its ability to allow any man of any size to survive.”

“Ultimate vulnerability. That’s manly.”

“I’ve learned to fall like the BJJ player, to protect the body through controlling the distribution of force by slapping the mat with hands open. With hands open. Hands open. Open. O Pen.”

“We give up our backs and allow religious myths to apply the rear naked choke to our minds.”

“Fighting and writing’s deepest layers of beauty lie not only in the physical and mental realms of what we know, but also as an incognizable instinct, a realm we will never fully know but will forever feel.”

“Stories do not change, only the lives they live in do.”

“The words he said, too, must be human enough to bleed.”