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When I was growing up, I went to an Irish-Christian missionary school.

I learned how to speak English watching television.

When I was six or seven, we went to the nearest English primary school, St Weonards, about seven miles away. The teaching was good, and this was the start of my beginning to shine as a student.

I taught English, first at a Catholic school and then at El Toro High School in Lake Forest, Calif.

I had an Irish Catholic education. Horrible nuns, vindictive and cruel.

I lived in England to learn English. When I went to England for the first time, it was like being on the Moon. I had no friends, I couldn't speak the language. I was very isolated.

I read everything from comics to magazines to fiction - I learned to read in English, years before being able to speak a word of it, by reading 'National Geographic.'

I was brought up a Catholic and I was quite fervent, because I was sent to a convent school.

I came from a poor family in Coney Island. I learned to write by reading the 'Post.' This was my education.

I like the relative literacy of at least some of England. I mean, I didn't come for the food or the weather!