I grew up in Queens and New Jersey. I started doing children's theater when I was seven to get out of school because I didn't fit in.
Everything has changed. When I was at school and was told I had better learn English, I said: What for? The English are a hell of a long way away!
My world was a community ballet school, a marching band, my two sisters and my girlfriends. I played saxophone in the band and was a bit nerdy.
As a boy in school, I already had the drive to be No. 1. If I achieve my goals, OK, but if not, I always ask why and try to rectify myself.
My brother was an improviser. He's now a lobbyist, but he used to perform improv in the city when he was in high school, and one of the funniest guys I know to this day.
How many more school shootings do we need before we start talking about this as a social problem, and not merely a random collection of isolated incidents?
Our nation's oldest sin and deepest crime is the isolation of minority children - black children, in particular - in schools that are not only segregated but shamefully unequal.
We need to reform our school lunch programs. We need to get healthy items into the vending machines.
I was a busy kid in high school - a little bit of an overachiever, I guess. Prom king was kind of silly, but the rest of the stuff was important to me.
In my neighborhood in Springfield, Ohio, there were a lot of young kids. We all played tackle football after school, but I knew very early on that I was not an athlete.
If you were to look back at me as a school kid you'd see a very quiet little church mouse kind of character.
My father was in Congress when I was born. He was mayor my whole life from when I was in grade school - first grade - to when I went away to college.
My teacher told me I'd never amount to anything. I left high school at 15, after one year. But my real teachers were all the people around me. And I was a good listener.
I think when your imagination goes to work, and when you're first bullied, you feel like you're going to die. School becomes a war zone, and you can't function.
People say, 'I know you, don't I?' And they expect me to say I know them from their daughter's school or something - they can't place me. And I love that. Long may it last.
Liesel Meminger: Franz Deutscher doesn't sound very smart. Rudy Steiner: He's the dumbest kid in school. But he shaves.
I went to New York for the first time when I was in college for a school trip and, uh, it did not appeal to me. It was too much hustle and bustle.
I was the kid who always liked to take the ball down to the school even in my free time, kick it against the wall, juggle it in the front yard and so it was kind of a perpetual state of playing soccer for me.
I had a tough time fitting in, as I guess most kids do. I felt like school was kind of a grand opportunity to figure yourself out and to figure out what you wanted.
The first time I met Ray, I was going to school around the corner from his house. One day, he was playing the piano. I eased up on the porch to listen to him.
I remember a concert for a visiting girls school, and that was the first time I ever sang - it was always about girls - that was the main thing. But somewhere along the line, it became a cathartic thing.
