I always wanted to be someone better the next day than I was the day before.

To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed.

We suffer pain, we hang tight to hope, we nurture expectations, we are plagued occasionally by fears, we are haunted by defeats and unrealized hopes . . . The hoplessness of which I speak is not limited.

I am the me I choose to be.

I had learned something of Miami from people who had visited there, so I knew what to expect.

But I always had the ability to say no. That's how I called my own shots.

So I had to be careful. I recognized the responsibility that, whether I liked it or not, I had to accept whatever the obligation was. That was to behave in a manner, to carry myself in such a professional way, as if there ever is a reflection, it's a positive one.