If you think your best days are behind you, they are. If you think your best days are ahead of you, they are.

I finally got to junior high and I got to start saxophone. There were a few of us that were in the beginner band in sixth grade that made it to the advanced band, which was called the morning band at our junior high school in Staten Island.

Purpose is the ultimate fuel for our journey through life. When we drive with purpose we don't get tired or bored and our engines don't burn out.

What I feel the most confident about as a teacher, whatever my strengths and weaknesses are. The fact that I got to be around those people, I feel like that I have something to offer because of that blessing. Being around them a little bit... I'm not them. I'm certainly not trying to compare myself to them. But in lieu of them being able to impart something, the fact that I had so many people like that that were kind to me and talked to me was invaluable.

Justin Di Cioccio led a jazz program at Music and Art, but there was no jazz in Performing Arts. After they joined, it became Laguardia School of Arts.

We listened [with my mother] to [Frank] Sinatra and Glen Campbell and we had some Beatles records that I liked. This was in the '70s.

If you go with that spirit, good things will come for you. If you go into it with an assumption that you're a genius and that you're entitled to something, it's a little tougher.