The Joy and Monotony of School

"The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse. I was still too young to grasp that people of breeding were meant to affect innocence of this fundamental distinction, and that the same courtesy applied to any disparity that might rise out of religious, racial, sexual, class, financial, and (most recently) cultural difference. So in my innocence I would raise my hand every time the teacher asked a question, just to make it clear I knew the answer."

Orhan Pamuk; Istanbul, Memories and the City.