I actually started as a concert pianist. I had a scholarship to the Julliard School of Music.
I was going to be a concert pianist, and when I was in high school, my parents were scared to death that I would focus too much on that too soon. And that I'd end up in some sort of dead end, and not fulfilling whatever potential they thought I had.
I have to say I've worked very few days of my life. I used to have to cut the lawn, and when I was in junior high school, I worked at a concession stand at a stadium.
I look back at my old school journals, and they're full of self-hatred, full of me condemning myself for not being prettier, richer, more popular.
In many ways, the North won the Civil War militarily and then lost the peace. You know, a group of writers, included many Confederate generals, began a school of thought called the Lost Cause in which they began to romanticize the Confederacy.
I have white friends who have the Confederate flag on their license plates, and I have no issue with that if they see that as a matter of heritage. But I do not think it should ever fly over a state, city, county building, or school, for the simple reason that it represents secession from the Union.
I'm from Anderson, S.C., but I grew up in the South. So I know what it is to ride to school and have Confederate flags flying from trucks in front of me and behind me, to see a parking lot full of people with Confederate flags and know what that means. I've been stopped by police for no reason.
Muriel, my mother, was my main confidant. She was a teacher of English at Watford grammar school but took a break while my sister Madeleine and I were children. She held court in the kitchen, and we talked about everything.
My recollection is - and I'd have to confirm this - but I don't recall paying any money to go to law school.
I remember when I first encountered anthropocentrism. I was in primary school and, in preparation for our confirmation, the class was learning about the afterlife.
I was confirmed at my prep school at the age of 13.
School is very conformist, and one of the very first conforming that goes on in preschool and kindergarten is gender.
Anyone driving through London after the school term ends will notice immediately how much easier it is to get around. The school run contributes massively to congestion.
Connecticut is home for life. I'm so glad I chose to go to school here.
My wife's name, Rebecca Lobo, is on sandwiches and street signs in New England. It adorns the arena rafters at the University of Connecticut, where she first became a basketball star. Her high school in Massachusetts is on Rebecca Lobo Way, a nice trump card to play at reunions.
Foreign languages was the only thing that interested me when I was at school, so playing in another language... it is quite demanding because if it is not your mother tongue, you are missing some connotations and some emotional depth of certain things.
You weigh your pros and cons and what's real. You want to play baseball? Yeah. You want to go to school? If that's the best option, than that is what it is.
At 11, 12, I thought I was clumsy, ugly, a mess, an unappealing person, but I did have the gift of the gab. I had the school record at Haberdashers for consecutive detentions for simply speaking out of turn.
Don't trust anyone who has been in school for the past 24 consecutive years.
I ended up turning down a full scholarship of music at the conservatory to pay to go to cooking school.
