A child's learning is a function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher.

For a Catholic kid in parochial school the only way to survive the beatings - by classmates not the nuns - was to be the funny guy.

I was so afraid to even read a paper in front of my classmates. It is very funny because at that point my teachers would never have believed that I could speak in front of an audience of over 2 000 people.

I couldn't help but to think back to my classmates at Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio. They had the same talent the same brains the same dreams as the folks we sat with at Stanford and Harvard. I realized the difference wasn't one of intelligence or drive. The difference was opportunity.

No no I was only funny on stage really. I I think I was funny as a person toward my classmates when I was very young. You know when I was a child up to about the age of 12.

Middle age is when your old classmates are so grey and wrinkled and bald they don't recognize you.