Even now, my blood becomes feverish when I reflect upon those bygone days when Bruce and I were together. He ingeniously helped me to recapture the days I lost having been interned for five years in an American concentration camp for simply having been born of Japanese descent. I had just graduated from high school and Bruce provided me with a therapy of sorts – just being able to “hang out” and do some of the light-hearted, crazy things that I had missed out on and been deprived of during my internment. The bitterness, negativeness, and the feeling of complete inferiority that plagued me in the days before Bruce Lee came into my life, are – as a direct result of his teachings and my own willingness to apply them – now just water that has passed under the bridge. I realize now that there was a concealed, hidden enrichment that I gleaned from my experiences, both positive and negative, that has served to make me a better person today.
— Taky Kimura (on his relationship with Bruce Lee)