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Rich, smart parents tend to have rich, smart kids - not because it's genetic but because they can create a home environment and sensory stimulation that lower-income kids often don't get.

My parents were just as smart as I am, just as hard working if not harder; I think my father and grandfather were probably better men, yet I've been able to accomplish things professionally that they were not able to.

Kids today are technologically sophisticated. In many families, they are far ahead of their parents.

There are parents with wealth who just want their kids to be wealthy, and then there are other parents with money who want to teach their kids how they got it. That's what my dad was like.

My parents were not affluent people and were not - didn't come from the extremities of education. My mother had a high school diploma. I often think I so wish she'd come out of the hills in Appalachia and been able to go on to college. I think she would have made a wonderful teacher.

As kids we didn't complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could. And as soon as we had a little money, we were eager to show it.

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.

Thirty, 40 years ago, more than that now, even, the cook was certainly at the bottom of the social scale. And any mother would've wanted their child to marry a doctor, a lawyer, an architect, not a cook. Now, we are genius, it's different.

My grandfather could barely read. My grandmother had a sixth-grade education. They were people who were industrious. They were frugal.