I tell you it was kind of two-fold. I fortunately had a lot of support. My coach was amazing - he told me to focus on being prepared and that is what I did. Every athlete is nervous - any athlete who tells you they're not nervous isn't telling you the truth. I was as prepared as I could be.

My early childhood prepared me to be a social psychologist. I grew up in a South Bronx ghetto in a very poor family. From Sicilian origin I was the first person in my family to complete high school let alone go to college.

It's a terrible thing to be alone - yes it is - it is - but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath - as terrible as you like - but a mask.

I have an internal protectiveness where it's like if it comes to just me as frightened as I am of losing someone I love or things going sour or simply being alone there is a dark place in my brain where I'm like It could happen and I'm okay I'm prepared.

You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.

You get to a certain age where you prepare yourself for happiness. Sometimes you never remember to actually get happy.

We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.

When a noble life has prepared old age it is not decline that it reveals but the first days of immortality.