Art to me is a humanitarian act and I believe that there is a responsibility that art should somehow be able to effect mankind, to make the word a better place. ↗
If you have a kid who goes to kindergarten and doesn't know what a circle is, doesn't know what red and green are, and doesn't know what right and left are, by the time he learns those things, the rest of the class is far ahead of him. ↗
Polls that have been taken by kindergarten, first- and second-grade teachers indicate that 30 percent of the kids have been deprived in some way so that they are physically unable to keep up with the class. ↗
They have been deprived nutritionally, or some illness has not been picked up, or they have not been screened for vision or hearing defects, or they have not had some kind of a chronic illness or error of metabolism picked up. ↗
What I took back, because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father, was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh. ↗
That's why these songs have lasted as long as they have because they're just about feelings that don't change. They are love songs, they are not specific, those kinds of feelings don't change. ↗
But when I went to Harvard, it kind of got washed out of me, partly because people made fun of you in college. If you said you believed in God, they would look at you clinically, you know, suggest that you needed a referral. ↗
