A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.
I went to Columbia University because I knew I wanted to go to a school that was academically rigorous. I prided myself on getting good grades, but I also hated it.
We overvalue the arts in relation to the sciences.
Would physics at Geneva be as good as physics at Harvard? I think not. Rome? I think not. In Britain, I don't think there is one place, neither Cambridge nor Oxford, which can compare with Harvard.
VCE exams do not showcase students' abilities. By this, I mean that the system fails to recognise the diversity of skills, and most subjects do not allow students to demonstrate skills in a form other than a written exam.
I was quite nerdy at school. I skipped a year and won a scholarship in chemistry.
In England, literary pretence is more universal than elsewhere from our method of education.
I'm a child of academics.
It wasn't just OK to achieve in my family - it was expected.
People question what I thought of Oxford. Students used to talk about the 'Oxford bubble' because the place can make you feel cut off from the rest of the world. I would forget there were places like London that were not centred round libraries and essays.
Making films take a lot of intelligence and is tough, though achieving Economics honours is tough, too.
I went to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, which was great but very different from a typical university. They sat us down in the first week and said: if you want to party, you've come to the wrong place. There was no lie-ins or skipping lectures.
