I never went to drama school, I don't have any certificates saying: 'He's a qualified actor.' But I did think that 'House' was something I didn't have to apologise for. It was something I was really proud of and it was sort of... whether you liked it or not, it was undeniable.
All through my school life I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed quite literally to wound other boys, and sometimes very severely.
I was the only white kid in my neighborhood for most of my youth even in high school, so reverse racism was just as apparent as racism.
In 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which, as any American high school student can tell you, was an act that apparently had something to do with stamps.
In 2015, an opera opened about me and Justice Antonin Scalia. It's called 'Scalia/Ginsburg.' The composer, Derrick Wang, has degrees in music from Harvard and Yale. Enrolled in law school, he was reading dueling opinions by me and Justice Scalia and decided he could compose an appealing comic opera from them.
Sometimes I - with comedy, it's like someone liking you in high school. They either do, or they don't. And when they don't, they don't. And that's it. There are no appeals. You show up, and you're like, 'Hi! I'm -' and you stumble, and they're like, 'It's over.'
I am able to say that I was very much liked at the school. I even had quite some ascendancy over my comrades, and as soon as I appeared in the school yard, I was surrounded by young friends, most of them bigger than I, but who were quite willing to give the appearance of disciples; they would have defended me furiously if necessary.
To be a pleasant person, you would at least need to see the point of being a pleasant person, or have it explained to you at some sort of 'finishing school' where you could actually learn the laws of propriety and the skills of appearing well-adapted, easygoing and attractively trouble free. But where do you learn these things? I don't know.
As a teenager, I had been growing away from the beliefs of the church, but one of the main things that caused me to question Christian Science was that the year that I left home to go to college, a boy who I knew in my Sunday School, whose name was Michael Schram, who was 12 years old, died at home of a ruptured appendix.
I remember wearing a full checkerboard look with checkerboard Vans when I was in elementary school and got bullied so much for it, so it's nice to see it being applauded and enjoyed.
Think of the first Apple II being shipped in 1977. It took almost a decade for it to land in my school where I could see it.
I was a grad student at UC Berkeley when I bought my Apple II and it suddenly because a lot more interesting than school.
I never sought nor gained personal benefit in school or job applications based on my heritage.
What's amazing is, if young people understood how doing well in school makes the rest of their life so much interesting, they would be more motivated. It's so far away in time that they can't appreciate what it means for their whole life.
I remember actually liking a girl in high school who was kind of an outcast and weird, and people made fun of her. I remember hanging out with her, but I was apprehensive about telling anyone I really liked her.
I did my first apprenticeship when I was 15, then joined the union when I was 17. I worked every summer in high school and college.
Playing in my early bands, working as a studio musician, producing and going to art school was, in retrospect, my apprenticeship. I was learning and creating a solid foundation of ideas, but I wasn't really playing music.
You are undoubtedly acquainted with my Reputation, and as for my Penmanship it must speak for itself; this is to desire your Approbation to keep a public school.
If anything, we should feel sorry for the people who want us to feel bad about ourselves, because they are the ones struggling for approval. In middle school, bullies tortured other kids because they thought it would make people like them more.
I speak five languages besides mine. I went to school in Egypt because girls weren't allowed to go to school in Saudi Arabia. It's very restricting, especially for girls; we're not allowed to go anywhere.
